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THE 
BOOK OF THE OCEAN 




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THE 



BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



BY 

ERNEST INGERSOLL 

AUTHOR OF "KNOCKING ROUND THE ROCKIES," ''THE OYSTER INDUSTRIES OF 

THE UNITED STATES," "FRIENDS WORTH KNOWING," "WILD 

NEIGHBORS," "THE CREST OF THE CONTINENT," ETC. 



IHlustratefc 



*S!W«a' **-.«£">$*; 




%Wr£; 



NEW YORK 
THE CENTURY CO. 

1898 



^ 



c 

A 



Copyright, 1898, 
By The Century Co. 







tCEIV~~ 



2n 

189c. 



THE DE VINNE PRESS. 










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CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I The Ocean and its Origin i 

II Waves, Tides, and Currents 9 

III The Building and Rigging of Ships 27 

IV Early Voyages and Explorations 39 

Part I — Previous to the Discovery of America. 
Part II — From Columbus to Cook. 

V Secrets Won from the Frozen North „ . jy 

VI War-Ships and Naval Battles 107 

Part I — Wooden Walls, from Salamis to Trafalgar. 
Part II — The Present Era of Steam and Steel. 

VII The Merchants of the Sea 155 

VIII Robbers of the Seas 171 

IX Yachting and Pleasure-Boating , 187 



X CONTENTS 

PAGE 

X Dangers of the Deep 201 

XI Fishing and other Marine Industries 2-31 

XII The Plants of the Sea and their Uses 249 

XIII Animal Life in the Sea 259 

Index of Illustrations 275 

General Index . 277 




THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 




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THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



CHAPTER I 



THE OCEAN AND ITS ORIGIN 




OOKING at the land, we divide the surface of the earth into 
H eastern and western hemispheres ; but looking at the water, 
we make an opposite classification. Encircle the globe in 
your library with a rubber band, so that it cuts across South 
America from about Porto Alegre to Lima on one side, and 
through southern Siam and the northernmost of the Philippine Islands 
on the other, and you make hemispheres, the northern of which (with 
London at its center) contains almost all the land of the globe, while the 
southern (with New Zealand as its central point) is almost entirely water, 
Australia, and the narrow southern half of South America being the only 
lands of consequence in its whole area. Observing the map in this way, 
noticing that, besides nearly a complete half-world of water south of your 
rubber equator, much of the northern hemisphere also is afloat, you are 
willing to believe the assertion that there is almost three times as much of 
the outside of the earth hidden under the waves as appears above them. 
The estimate in round numbers is one hundred and fifty million square 
(statute) miles of ocean surface, as compared with about fifty million square 
miles of land on the adobe. 

To the people whose speculations in geography are the oldest that have 
come down to us, the earth seemed to be an island around which was per- 
petually flowing a river with no further shore visible. Beyond it, they 
thought, lay the abodes of the dead. This river, as the source of all other 
rivers and waters, was deified by the early Greeks and placed among their 
highest gods as Oceanus, whence our word " ocean." Accompanying, or be- 
longing to him, there grew up, in the fertile imagination of that poetic 
people, a large company of gods and goddesses, while men hid their ab- 
sence of real knowledge by peopling the deep with quaint monsters. 



2 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

"The word for 'ocean' (marc) in the Latin tongue means, by derivation, 
a desert, and the Greeks spoke of it as 'the barren brine.' ' 

Over these old fables we need not linger. All the myths and guess- 
work that went before history represented the sea as older than the land, 
and told how creation began by lifting the earth above the universal 
waste of waters. The story in Genesis is only one of many such stories. 

Scientific men believe that when our planet first went circling swiftly in 
its orbit it was a glowing, globular mass of fiery vapors ; but as time 




A QUIET SEA, AND THE SUN AT MIDNIGHT. 

From a photograph. 

passed, the icy chill of space slowly cooled these vapors, and chemical 
changes steadily modified, sorted, and solidified the materials into the begin- 
nings of the present form and character, until at last water came into exis- 
tence. This must have been at first in the form of a thick envelop of heated 
vapors, impregnated with gases, that inwrapped the globe in a darkness lit 
only by its own fires. 

After that, when further changes had come about, — let us picture it, — 
what deluges of rain were poured out of and down through those murky 
clouds where thunders bellowed and ligritningfs warred ! At first all the 
rains that fell must have been turned to steam again ; but by and by the 



THE OCEAN AND ITS ORIGIN 




EATING AWAY THE COAST. 



steady downpour cooled the shap- 
ing sflobe so that all the water 
was not vaporized, but some 
stayed as a liquid where it fell, 
and this increased in amount 
more and more, until finally, 
between the hissing core of the 
half-hardened planet and the 
dense clouds which kept out all 
the sunlight, there rolled the 
heated waves of the first ocean 
— an ocean broken only by the 
earliest ridges, like chains of islands, marking the skeletons of the con- 
tinents that were to follow — an ocean sending up ceaseless volumes of 
steam to form new clouds. 

Yet all the while the cooling of the planet went on. Now, when any 
heated substance cools it contracts, and the globe as a whole is no excep- 
tion to the rule ; but a sphere formed of so incompressible a substance 
as rock can shrink only by some sort of folding or displacement of its sur- 
face. Therefore, as the cooling of our _ 

globe proceeded, explosions and swell- 
ings constantly occurred at weak points 
or lines on or near the surface, where Ha 
the prodigious strain forced a break. 
That these upheavals were most prom- 
inent and extended in the northern 
hemisphere is shown by the fact that the 
great masses and heights of land are 
grouped there; and the trend of moun- 
tain-ranges seems to show that the range 
of breakage and upheaval was in general 
in north-and-south lines. Elsewhere, 
and mainly in the southern hemisphere, 
broad areas of perhaps stiffer crust sank 
downward, making the vast depressions 
into which poured the waters of the 
primeval sea, and where our oceans still 
sway and roll. 

All these changes, however, have 



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been in the direction of insuring more 



SURF AT FORT DUMPLING, R. I. 



4 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

and more stability ; and when the ocean water had thoroughly cooled, the 
very chill of its vast masses in the depths of the troughs assisted in the 
work, for the cold water, by more rapidly withdrawing their heat, caused 
the rocks beneath their basins to become denser, thicker, stronger, -and 
consequently less liable to break or change, than were those rocks forming 
the foundations of the continents. 

The moment it had shores to beat upon, that moment the ocean began 
to knock them to pieces under its pounding surf, and to grind the frag- 
ments so small that they could be drifted away, reassorted, and deposited 
wherever the water was sufficiently quiet to let them fall. ' The original 
rocks — chiefly granite — held the different forms of lime, magnesia, etc., 
to make the limestones ; the silica to make the gritty sandstones ; the alu- 
mina to make the clays ; and so on. The sea not only was the agent to 
eat this old, rich crust to pieces and respread it into strata, but to sort out 
for us the materials to a considerable extent, laying down beds of lime- 
stone by themselves, and sandstone, shales, marl, etc., by themselves. It 
is probable, says Professor Shaler, that layers of rock twenty miles in 
thickness have thus been laid down on the gradually settling ocean floor, 
much of which has been raised again to form continental lands. 

Hitherto we have spoken of the waters that surround the continents as 
if they formed one mass, as, practically, they do ; but for convenience' 
sake we may designate certain areas by separate names, which ought now 
to be defined. Thus the larger, more open spaces are known as oceans, 
and of these five are recognized, namely, Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Arctic, 
and Antarctic. Parts or branches of these, more or less inclosed by land 
and usually comparatively shallow, are termed seas. 

The Pacific Ocean is the largest, it alone covering more space than 
all the continents combined, having a breadth, east and west, of ten 
thousand miles (about the length of the Atlantic), and an area of 
seventy million square miles. The equator divides it into the North and 
South Pacific. The former is comparatively free from islands, and is in- 
closed northward by the approaching extremities of Alaska and Siberia ; 
while the latter widens at the south into the boundless Antarctic Ocean. 
Its basin is a vast depression of fairly uniform depth, studded in the western 
part by island peaks, — the summits of submerged volcanic mountain-ranges. 
The name "Pacific," or "Peaceful," was given to it by Magalhaens (Ma- 
gellan), its first navigator, in 1540 (see Chapter IV), in his joy at having 
escaped from the tempestuous experience he had long endured in the South 
Atlantic. On the whole the Pacific deserves its name as compared with the 
Atlantic — a fact chiefly due to its great size. The term " South Sea" was 



THE OCEAN AND ITS ORIGIN 




PERCfi ROCK, IN THE GULF OF ST. LAWRENCE, SHOWING 
DESTRUCTION OF SHORE-ROCKS BY WATER. 

formerly much used for it, but English-speaking persons now usually mean 
by that phrase the island-studded district between Hawaii and Australia. 

The Atlantic commemorates in its name the myth of Atlas and his island. 
Atlas seems to have been originally, among the Greeks, the name of the 
Peak of Tenerife, of which they had vague information from the earlier 



6 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

Phenician sea-wanderers. Then this was forgotten, and in place of the 
fact arose a myth of a Titan who stood upon a vast island in or beyond the 
"Western Sea," called Atlantis. Legends of wars with its people form 
a part of the nebulous hero-story of the beginnings of Athens ; and it -is 
said to have sunk out of sight long before records began. There have 
always been those who believed this story founded upon fact, and only 
a few years ago a book was printed in the United States arguing that the 
tale was the history of a real land ; but not only is there no literary or 
historical evidence that Atlantis had any firmer foundation than vague 
memories of the Cape Verd or Canary Islands, but every evidence of 
the geological condition and history of the eastern shores and bed of the 
middle Atlantic Ocean shows that no such convulsion as the destruction 
of this island calls for ever took place there, or that there was ever such 
a land to be submerged. The Atlantic occupies a long, winding, com- 
paratively narrow trough, that measures about ten thousand miles north and 
south, from the ice of the Antarctic to the ice of the Arctic ocean, and has 
only a few islets south of Iceland, the Faroes and the Shetlands, which rise 
from a plateau stretching from Labrador to Great Britain, the higher points 
of which were probably above the water within comparatively recent geo- 
logical times, possibly since man appeared upon the globe. The average 
depth of the Atlantic south of this ridge is about thirteen thousand feet, 
but greater depths are found along the African and American coasts, on 
each side of a long- submerged ridge from which rise the isolated islands 
of Cape Verd, St. Helena, and Tristan da Cunha. The width from 
Norway to Greenland is only about eight hundred miles, but between 
Montevideo and Cape Town it is thirty-six hundred miles, and the aver- 
age width is about three thousand miles. The shape and situation of the 
Atlantic make it the most stormy of the three great oceans, and it is the 
one where the phenomena of tides, currents, etc., are most prominently mani- 
fested, as we shall see. It is also the most frequented and best known, be- 
cause it has been necessary to study it for the benefit of commerce. 

The Indian Ocean is simply the extension of the vast southern water- 
zone northward of parallel 40 , south latitude, where, from the Cape of Good 
Hope to Tasmania, it is six thousand miles in width. At this line the depth 
suddenly decreases, as though the edge of a submerged Antarctic plateau 
defined the southerly rim of its basin there. This ocean contains several 
large and some groups of small islands, but these are mostly near the 
shore, and connected with the neighboring continent by shallow waters, 
showing that they rise from a submerged plateau. The average depth 
of the Indian Ocean is about fourteen thousand feet; its surface-water is 



THE OCEAN AND ITS ORIGIN J 

warmer and Salter than that of any other ; and its winds and weather are 
more regular and peaceful than in either the Atlantic or the North Pacific. 

The Arctic Ocean is the well-defined body of water around and probably 
over the north pole. It is connected with the Pacific only by the narrow 
and very shallow Bering Strait, and with the Atlantic by comparatively nar- 
row openings. It has been fairly well explored as far north as the parallel 
of 8o°, and found to contain many islands ; but it appears that there is 
great depth of water north of Spitzbergen and northeast of Greenland, 
making it probable that the trough of the Atlantic reaches to or beyond 
the pole itself. Most of its area is covered with drifting ice. 

The Antarctic Ocean is regarded as the space of water within the Ant- 
arctic circle ; but this is surrounded by a zone of deep ocean, unbroken 
almost half-way to the equator, except by the narrow southern part of South 
America and by New Zealand. It is an area, apparently rather shallow, of 
ice, fogs, and tempestuous gales, inclosing lands of unknown extent. 

But these geographical distinctions are merely convenient methods 
of speech. After all, there is only one ocean " poured round all," and its 
particles are incessantly changed in place and remingled by means of a 
world-wide system of tides and currents, the effect of which is to keep sea- 
water everywhere uniform in character and perfectly pure and healthful. 




WAVE-WORN CLIFFS AND PEBBLE-BEACH AT ETRETAT, FRANCE. 

(FROM A PAINTING BY WILLIAM P. W. DANA.) 




IN MID-OCEAN: A GREAT WAVE. 



CHAPTER II 
WAVES, TIDES, AND CURRENTS 




OW that we have studied the ancient ocean, it is time to 
study its present characteristics and understand the great 
and important part it plays in the world. 

A very striking thing about the ocean is its flatness. 
Being water, it seeks always to find its level ; and we com- 
monly assume that it everywhere does so, and take the sea-level as the 
standard from which to calculate all heights above or depths below 
its surface ; that is, we assume that every part of the surface of the 
ocean when calm and at mean tide is exactly the same distance from the 
center of the globe. This, however, is not wholly true. Careful observa- 
tion has shown that the Pacific is several feet lower on the western shore of 
the Isthmus of Darien than is the Atlantic on its eastern shore — a fact 
due, no doubt, to the crowding of water by the Gulf Stream into the Carib- 
bean Sea. The Mediterranean is known to be somewhat higher than the 
Atlantic, and other differences exist in similar places elsewhere. 

This introduces the subject of depth — a matter which we have learned 
accurately only within a very few years. In the early days ropes alone 
were used for sounding, and these had to be of considerable size to bear the 
strain ; but a mile or so of rope became too heavy to handle, and depths 
below that length remained unmeasured. Then a little machine was tried 
consisting of a heavy weight having attached to it, by a trigger, a wooden 
float. This was thrown overboard. It sank, and when it touched bottom 
the shock released the float. From the time that elapsed before the float 
reappeared the depth was estimated. This, however, was little better than 
guesswork ; and accurate soundings exceeding one thousand fathoms were 
not obtained until an American naval officer began to use wire instead of 
rope. From this hint was developed elaborate machinery, operated by 
steam, using steel piano-wire, having automatic registers of the amount 
reeled out, and carried down by weights that were released when the bot- 



IO 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



torn was struck, making it easier to recover the wire. To these weights 
(or rather to the wire just above them) were attached devices for clutching 
and bringing to the surface specimens of the bottom, self-closing jars to 
fetch water from the lowest layer, self-registering thermometers that- re- 
corded the temperatures 
at the greatest or at va- 
rious intermediate depths, 
and other means of learn- 
ing the character of the 
water, bottom-material, 
and animal life several 
miles below the surface, 
including methods of pho- 
I tographing by aid of a 
submerged electric light. 
Such investigations, car- 
ried on in ships suitably 
equipped, have been pro- 
secuted by several gov- 
ernments, most notably 
by the expedition of the 
Challenger, a British sur- 
veying-ship which cir- 
cumnavigated the globe 
during the years from 
1872 to 1876. 

This and many other 
expeditions have sounded 
in all parts of the world, 
and explored large tracts 
where the water uniformly 
exceeded three miles in 
depth. The United States 
ship Enterprise, after 
passing the Chatham Is- 
:,,J ~ N :ij<" "V s lands in her run from 

New Zealand to the Strait 
of Magellan, found the 

sea-cave near giant's causewav, water everywhere more 

north of Ireland. than thirteen thousand 




WAVES, TIDES, AND CURRENTS I I 

feet deep. Throughout her run from Montevideo to New York the water 
varied from twelve to eighteen thousand feet deep, and Captain Nares and 
Admiral Belknap found like depths over equally vast breadths elsewhere. 

Yet even in these basins more profound pits and valleys exist. Several 
places are known near Japan and off Porto Rico exceeding five miles in 
depth ; and an English officer sounded 29,400 feet in the southern Pacific 
Ocean, nineteen hundred miles east of Brisbane, without finding bottom. 

The average depth of all the oceans is estimated at from twelve thousand 
to fifteen thousand feet. As, according to Humboldt, the average height 
of the lands of the globe is only about one thousand feet, it will be seen 
that all the land now above the water, and its foundations, could be shoveled 
into the ocean troughs and still leave water more than two miles in depth 
covering the whole planet. 

The soundings and dredgings of which I have spoken enable us to make 
a tolerable map of the ocean beds and to describe their features. All the 
continents are bordered by a shelf reaching out under the shallow shore- 
water to a greater or less distance, and then dropping, usually with much 
abruptness, to the ocean trough. This shelf, perhaps originally a part of the 
primeval continent, bears most of the great islands near continents, such as 
Newfoundland, the West Indies, Great Britain and Ireland, Madagascar, 
the Aleutian, Japanese, and Philippine groups, the Malay Archipelago, and 
others. If you will look at a map that has marked upon it the line of one 
thousand fathoms' depth along the shores of the various continents, you will 
find it reaching far out from the eastern shores of both Americas, the western 
and northern shores of Europe, the eastern shores of South Africa, prolong- 
ing India hundreds of miles, and embracing great spaces among the East 
Indies, while even the hundred-fathom line would connect many an island 
with the mainland or with some other island, as they actually have been 
connected in times gone by. The fact is, there is not a single proper 
mountain-peak rising out of deep water at any great distance from the 
margins of the continents. All the numerous islands of the wide oceans 
are either coral reefs or the summits of volcanic cones. 

Upon this shelf, and for the most part within two hundred miles of the 
coast, are deposited all of the materials torn from the land by the sea or 
brought down by rivers or glaciers, excepting the very finest, which currents 
may float somewhat farther out, and also excepting the rocks that icebergs 
carry away and drop in mid-ocean ; but this is not a great amount, for most 
icebergs strand on the shallows off Newfoundland or in Bering Sea. 

Almost nothing from the shores, therefore, reaches the central depths of 
the open oceans, whose beds are in substantially the same condition that 



12 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



they were in at the beginning, except for two things — volcanic upheavals 
in some places, and the remains of animal life everywhere. The former ex- 
ception is a very important one, since it is now known, according to Pro- 
fessor Shaler, that volcanoes, by their eruptions, send more dust and broken 
materials to the seas than the rivers and shores combined. 

" Although the deeper sea-floors probably lack mountains," says Pro- 
fessor Shaler, "they are not without striking reliefs, which, if they could 




THE VOLCANO KRAKATOA (SUNDA STRAIT) IN ERUPTION IN 1S83. 



be seen, would present all the dignity which their size gives to the Hima- 
layas or Andes : the difference is that these elevations are not true moun- 
tains, but volcanic peaks, sometimes isolated, again accumulated in long, 
narrow ridges, but all made up of matter poured out from the craters or 
through great fissures in the crust. So numerous are these heaped masses 
of lava and other ejections from these vents that there is hardly any con- 
siderable area of the oceans where they do not rise above the surface. 
There are indeed thousands of these volcanic peaks distributed from pole 
to pole. . . . Thus on the floor of the North Atlantic there is evidently a 
long, irregular chain of these elevations extending from the Icelandic group 
of islands southward to the Azores. If an explorer could view this part 
of the sea-bottom, he would probably find that the line of craters was as 
continuous as that exhibited by the volcanoes of the Andes. 



WAVES, TIDES, AND CURRENTS I 3 

"Besides the volcanic peaks," Professor Shaler continues, "the sea- 
bottom in certain parts of the tropics ... is beset with the singular ele- 
vations formed by coral reefs." But of these I shall have more to say 
toward the end of the book, and I allude to them here only as a feature 
of the invisible landscape beneath the waves. 

Over the vast, gently undulating spaces separating these submerged 
lines of volcanoes and the ridges of coral, lies a mat of mud of unknown 
thickness, which naturalists term "ooze." It is principally composed of 
volcanic dust and of the microscopic "tests," or flinty or limy skeletons, of 
minute animals, few of which are large enough to be seen by the unaided 
eye. " Dwelling in myriads in the superficial parts of the sea, these 
foraminifera, as they are termed, sink at death to the bottom, over which 
they accumulate a thick coating of minutely divided limestone powder, 
forming a layer of ooze as unsubstantial as the finest snow." 

In regions like the North Atlantic this ooze consists almost wholly of 
such animal matter ; but in other regions, such as the South Pacific, where 
volcanoes prevail, it is constantly and largely increased by an enormous 
quantity of mineral matter hurled broadcast by volcanoes, all of which are 
on islands or near sea-coasts. A part of this is the merest dust, which 
slowly settles from the air, perhaps hundreds of miles from where it was 
ejected. A larger part consists of that spongy lava called pumice, which is 
so full of holes filled with air and gases that it may float half way around 
the globe before it sinks, as happened .after the explosion of Krakatoa. 

Into the oceanic ooze, too, sinks so much of all dead fishes and other 
mid-sea animals as is not dissolved or devoured before reaching it; and 
it forms the grave of thousands of men. It is often said that ships and 
other things would not sink far, but would float, suspended by dense 
water or some miraculous influence, only a few hundred or a few thousand 
feet below the surface, for no one knows how long. But this eerie notion 
has no foundation in fact. " No other fate," we are assured by those who 
know, "awaits the drowned sailor or his ship than that which comes to the 
marine creatures who die on the bottom of the sea. In time their dust all 
passes into the great storehouse of the earth, even as those who receive burial 
on land." Wooden wrecks probably last much longer than those of iron. 

I have mentioned that a small part of what the sea tears away from the 
land, or receives from rivers, winds, and other sources, is dissolved in its 
waters, which now contain, no doubt, samples of every ingredient of the 
rocks and soils of the dry land, and very likely some elements not yet 
detected. This solvent power of the sea explains its saltness, and it must 
go on growing more and more bitter as long as its waves grind at the 



14 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

shores and the rivers run down. The salinity varies in degree, water 
at great depths being salter than that near the surface, and excelling in 
saltness where evaporation is rapid, as under the trade-winds, while fresher 
in the regions of equatorial calms, where an immense amount of rain falls ; 
broadly, the lightest (freshest) water is found at the equator, and the 
heaviest in the temperate regions. Inclosed, or nearly inclosed, areas be- 
come very salt. Thus the Dead Sea is what chemists call a saturated so- 
lution, being nearly one third (28 per cent.) salt, and Great Salt Lake in 
Utah is not far behind. The Red Sea contains 4 per cent., and some 
parts of the Mediterranean nearly as much. Taking all the open oceans 
together, about 3 }i in every 100 parts (3^ per cent.) is composed of vari- 
ous salts, more than three quarters of which is common salt (chloride 
of sodium), and the remainder mainly forms of magnesium. One of the 
Challenger authors has estimated that the oceans contain enough salt to 
make a layer 1 70 feet thick over their whole area, and another writer says 
that the amount, if heaped up, would be four times larger than the whole 
bulk of Europe above the level of high-water mark, mountains and all. 

In early times, indeed, sea- water, which yields about a quarter of a 
pound of crystallized salt per gallon, was almost the only source of salt 
for food. Even yet it is the principal source of supply for the manufacture 
of commercial salt in France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Austria, the West 
Indies, and Central and South America; and it is largely used in Holland, 
Belgium, and Great Britain. The early process, still extensively practised 
in some parts of Europe, was to admit the sea-water to large partitioned 
flats floored with clay, where it evaporated rapidly. The salt-crystals re- 
maining were then collected, purified to a greater or less degree, and sold 
off-hand. It was by similar means that our great-grandfathers in New 
England and along the Southern coasts provided themselves with salt, only 
they used large vats arranged over fires instead of earthen basins exposed 
to the sun. 

But analysis of sea-water discloses small quantities of many other recog- 
nizable minerals. Silica must be there to supply the needs of many fora- 
minifers, sponges, and other animals ; lime in various forms exists, or else 
such sea animals as mollusks could not compose their shells, nor polyps 
erect their enormous reefs ; bromine is present, and to the iodine and other 
mineral dyes in the water we owe the lovely purples, crimsons, and scarlets 
painting corallines, seaweeds, echinoderms, and some molluscan shells, as 
that of the Sargasso-snail (Janthina). 

As for gold and silver, both are present. I have seen it stated that a 
, voyage of a year or two is sufficient to permit the formation of a film of 



WAVES, TIDES, AND CURRENTS 



15 



silver all over the copper sheathing of a ship's bottom, so that a frigate re- 
turning from a long cruise is really silver-plated ; but I fancy this is more 
a matter of imagination than visible reality. Gold, in certain chemical com- 
binations, certainly exists in sea-water, and may be extracted therefrom. 
Up to the present, however, the cost of the extraction has been more than 
the precious metal obtained was worth. Gold is often washed from sea-sand. 

The ceaseless restlessness of the ocean forms another of the greatest 
contrasts between it and the immovable land — terra firma, as those like 
to call it who have been 
tossing too long- on the 
"rolling deep." This 
characteristic restless- 
ness involves some of 
the most important and 
interesting facts in phy- 
sical geography; for were 
the waters still, — that is, 
were the oceans simply 
huge, quiet ponds. — 
none of that action could 
take place along the 
shores which has been 
so important an agent 
in shaping the world and 
making it a suitable place 
for human habitation and 
social development. 

On a planet with an 
atmosphere and chang- 
ing seasons like ours, however, a stagnant ocean is as impossible as a 
motionless air ; indeed, it is because the air is always in motion that large 
bodies of water are never at rest, for it is the changing density and temper- 
ature and movements (winds) of the air that produce waves and currents. 

Waves are caused by the pressure and friction of the wind upon the sur- 
face of the water, as you may readily see at any pond ; and the water in 
them simply rises and falls, driving forward a little at the very surface so as 
to cause a gentle current called wind-drift. When the waves approach 
the shallow, sloping border of the land they are checked at the bottom by 
the slope of the beach, while the freer upper part goes forward, and the 
waves speedily lose their rounded form and become more and more sharply 




A FIORD, OR DEEP CREVICE WORN IN SEA-CLIFFS. 



1 6 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

ridged and steep on the front side as they sweep on until at last they pitch 
forward in the crash and thunder of surf. 

In the open ocean the waves are usually doing little work except to 
cause the surface to rise and fall. The harder the wind blows, the higher 
the waves become, and the faster they travel. This speed has been calcu- 
lated, and has been found to be proportionate to size. 

"Waves 200 feet long from hollow to hollow," we are told, "travel 
about 19 knots per hour; those of 400 feet in length make 27 knots; and 
those of 600 feet rush forward irresistibly at 32 knots." These, of course, 
are under the furious impulse of a gale, and it is marvelous that ships can 
be made to ride over them ; nor is it any wonder that excited mariners 
clinging to the bulwarks of some small and heeling craft, should call them 
" mountain high," and declare in all seriousness that they have seen their 
crests rising one hundred feet above their hollows. No such altitude, nor 
half of it, probably, is ever reached by a storm-wave in the heaviest cyclone. 
An excellent authority, Lieutenant Oualtrough, assures us that the highest 
trustworthy measurements are from forty-four to forty-eight feet. The 
height of a wave depends upon what mariners call its "fetch" — that is, its 
distance from the place where the waves began to form. This has been 
worked out mathematically by Thomas Stevenson (father of the late Rob- 
ert Louis Stevenson, the novelist), an eminent engineer and designer of 
lighthouses, who gives the following formula : " The height of the wave in 
feet is equal to 1 % multiplied by the square root of the fetch in nautical 
miles." If the waves began 100 miles away from your ship, the waves 
about you will be 15 feet high, because the square root of 100 is 10,'and 
one and a half times 10 is 15 (feet). The highest waves are not formed in 
the greatest tempests, which beat down their crests, but when the gale is 
both very strong and long continued. The worst "seas," as sailors call big 
waves, are those met with off the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn. 

The depth to which wave disturbance extends depends on the violence 
of the wind, and near shore upon the slope of the bottom. Prestwich tells 
us that pebbles may sometimes be moved at the depth of one hundred feet, 
and sand much deeper, as is shown by the fact that the bottom is disturbed 
in heavy storms on the Banks of Newfoundland. 

The weight and power of such on-rushing masses of water are tremen- 
dous, as appears from the effect on coasts where they strike ; but this opens 
up a subject which is too large for treatment here, and I must refer readers 
to geological treatises, and to such special works as Professor N. S. Shaler's 
excellent " Sea and Land," where the work of the ocean in tearing down and 
building up its coasts is fully and entertainingly explained. I shall have 



WAVES, TIDES, AND CURRENTS 



17 




LOW TIDE, ST. JOHN'S HARBOR, N. B. 

something more to say on this point, also, when I come to the chapter 
" Dangers of the Deep," and speak of the terrible destruction caused 
by earthquakes, and in certain other agitations of the sea not due to the 
wind, and often styled "tidal waves." There is only one kind of "tidal 
wave," properly speaking, however ; and this is a theoretical rather than an 
actual one, perceptible usually only in that rising and falling of the water 
along coasts twice each twenty-four hours that we call the flow and ebb of 
the tides ; and here we see the effect rather than the thing itself. 

The tide has been an inevitable circumstance of the existence on 
the earth of the ocean, or any other great body of water, ever since 
its origin, yet it was not until Sir Isaac Newton made us comprehend 
the law of gravitation that its mystery was explained. We now know 
with certainty — if you want the mathematical formulae and so forth, 
consult some good modern encyclopaedia under the word tide — that this 
periodical rising and falling of the sea is due to the, attraction of the sun 
and moon, — to the last three times as much as to the first, because it is so 
much nearer. This attraction is exerted toward the globe as a whole ; and 
its visible effect upon the movable water is to lift it bodily on that side 



i8 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



nearest the moon, and at the same time to pull away the earth from the 
water on the opposite side, which amounts to the same thing; and thus high 
tides are simultaneously produced at these antipodes, which accounts for 
the two a day. At the same time, however, the intermediate spaces have 
low tides caused by an attraction there toward the center of the earth. 
"There are thus always simultaneously and directly under the moon two 
high waters opposite each other, and two low waters at equal distances 

between them. Owing to 
the rotation of the earth, 
this permanent system of 
swells and troughs trav- 
els from east to west over 
every part of the ocean 
and of its coast, and ex- 
plains the regular succes- 
sion of rising: and falling 
waters, at equal intervals 
of time, which we call the 
tides." 

But the sun also ex- 
erts a similar but lesser 
influence, producing four 
daily solar tides, which 
most of the time are lost 
to view in the greater 
lunar tides. When, how- 
ever, the moon gets into 
line with the earth and 
the sun, so that both the 
heavenly bodies pull to- 
gether like a tandem team, 




THE EARTHQUAKE-WAVE PASSING OVER THE 
LIGHTHOUSE ON POINT ANJER. 



as happens twice a month, — at new moon and full moon, — their combined 
action causes unusually high water, which is the sum of the lunar and solar 
tides, and is called the spring tide. High water is then highest, and low 
water lowest. On the other hand, in the midst of these fortnightly inter- 
vals, when the moon is at its first or third quarter, the sun is a full quarter 
of the heavens (qo°) away from the moon. Its influence, therefore, acts at 
right angles to or practically against that of the moon, and the solar tides 
go to swell the low waters and diminish the high waters, forming what 
sailors call neap tides, — preserving an old English word meaning low. 



WAVES, TIDES, AND CURRENTS 1 9 

Now remember that the globe is not standing still, even while we 
make these explanations, but is revolving at a tremendous speed, so that 
the water under the moon lifted by lunar attraction is changing place every 
instant at the rate of over one thousand miles an hour, and you have the 
conception of a low wave on each side of the earth, reaching north and 
south, highest and swiftest on the equator and diminishing toward the 
poles. These are the true tidal waves. Were the globe covered with an 
unbroken mantle of water, such waves, each about twenty inches (or twenty- 
nine inches at springtide) high on the average at the equator, would follow 
one another round and round the earth at the rate of one complete circuit 
in every twenty-four hours. That must have been the case in the primeval 
ocean before any continents existed ; and something of it still exists in the 
belt of unobstructed water surrounding- the Antarctic continent of ice. It 
would then be flood tide or ebb tide at the same hour along the whole 
length of any one meridian. But in the present condition of the globe, 
where the oceans are separated by continents and broken by islands, the 
progress of the tidal waves is obstructed, deflected, and wholly stopped in 
a great variety of ways and places, so that the hours, amount, and behavior 
of the tides are exceedingly varied in different regions, and are often 
very puzzling, forming one of the most difficult matters with which the 
practical navigator has to deal. Interference of tidal currents forms the 
Maelstrom, off the coast of Norway, whose revolution is reversed twice 
daily, the classic Scylla and Charybdis, in the Straits of Messina, so 
much dreaded by the navigators of old, and many other whirlpools of 
less celebrity. The tidal wave sweeping northward across the Atlantic 
has time to round the northern end of Scotland and flood the German 
Ocean with southward swelling currents before the rising water pouring 
into the southern end of the English Channel has time to push its way 
through that narrow and shallow passage ; hence the two floods meet in 
the Straits of Dover, which accounts for the miserable chop-sea so sadly 
prevalent in that unfortunate bit of water. 

The natural height of the tide seems to be from two to five feet, as shown 
in the midst of the broad Pacific. " But when clashing against the land, 
and forced into deep gulfs and estuaries," to quote Professor Simon New- 
comb, "the accumulating tide-waters sometimes reach a very great height. 
On the eastern coast of North America, which is directly in the path of the 
great Atlantic wave, the tide rises on an average from 9 to 1 2 feet. In the 
Bay of Fundy, which opens its bosom to receive the full wave, the tide, 
which at the entrance is 18 feet, rushes with great fury into that long and 
narrow channel, and swells to the enormous height of 60 feet, and even to 



20 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

70 feet in the highest spring tides. In the Bristol Channel, on the coast of 
•England, the spring tides rise to 40 feet, and swell to 50 in the English 
Channel at St. Malo on the coast of France." 

To this cause is also due in some degree those great oceanic currents 
which form another striking fact in the history of the sea ; but they are 
mainly due to temperature, wind, and the rotation of the earth. 

The drops that make up a body of water are the most restless things in 
the world; they are always sliding down the least slope, sinking out of the 
way of lighter substances, rising to let a heavier object pass beneath 
them, or moving hither and thither in an ever hopeful search of that level- 
ness and quiet that we call equilibrium. Furthermore, when water is 
heated it becomes lighter. Should, therefore, a portion of the sea grow 
warmer than the remainder, it must and will rise to the surface ; and when- 
ever a portion becomes cooled, it must and will sink. 

Now, under the continuous blazing: sun of the torrid zone the sea-water 
near the surface gets fairly warm, — having an average temperature of about 
85 ° along the equator, — while in the polar regions the ocean is always 
chilled by permanent or floating ice until it is nearly cold enough to freeze; 
but these masses of warm and cold water cannot remain separate in the 
universal ocean. The hot tropical flood, continually rising, must flow away 
somewhere to find its level; and it can flow nowhere except toward the 
poles, for there the ever-sinking volume of chilled and therefore heavier 
water sucks it in to take its place, while it, in turn, creeps underneath 
toward the equator, there to fill the gap which the escaping warm water 
leaves behind. So we know there is constantly going on an interchange 
of water — a constant flowing away from the equator northward and south- 
ward on the surface, and a flowing in toward the equator along the bot- 
tom ; an endless springing up in the torrid zone and a steady settling down 
in the polar seas. One out of many proofs of this fact is that the thalassal 
abysses below the depth of a mile or so are known to be ice-cold. This 
could not happen unless they were constantly filled and refilled with new 
water from the great coolers at the poles ; for it the water at those depths 
should remain unchanged, it would soon become very warm from the heat 
of the interior of the earth, whence it does constantly extract some heat. 

But while this invisible vertical circulation is going on, another more 
visible and interesting set of movements is in progress on the surface, forming 
what are known as ocean currents. These are vast rivers in the ocean flow- 
ing across its face in certain directions and to a certain depth, as rivers 
make their way along the land. They begin and are kept going mainly by 
a union of the two causes already explained — heat and wind. 



WAVES, TIDES, AND CURRENTS 



2 I 



The heat of the sun at the equator, warming, lightening, and evaporat- 
ing the water, constantly tends to draw the colder water from the poles, 
most copiously from the South Pole; but the Antarctic water, hastening to 
the equator, is soon interrupted by the extremities of Australia, Africa, and 
South America, and so split into three great branches. That which passes 
into the South Atlantic goes on northward alone the 

western coast of Africa, I H^ft^^ part of it becoming so 

warm under the ""•„*-? :■- I .- »»' j-*«^ hot sun there that 

it will not sink, '---/ -"ffc IH^, butconstantly 

comes more j; - - \ SMj^^M BBlfli^ and more 




^6 



-jfv 



V, 



A STEAMER BORNE ASHORE BY 
AN EARTHQUAKE-WAVE. 

to the surface, until it strikes against 
the great shoulder of Guinea and is 
turned sharply westward. Now it 
is squarely under the trade-wind 
and ' headed the same way ; con- 
stantly urged forward by this mod- 
erate but endless tugging of the wind upon its waves, the current can never 
swerve, but flows along the equator, and for half a dozen degrees each side 
of it, straight across the Atlantic. South America, however, stands in its 
path, and the wedge-like coast of Brazil, pointed with Cape St. Roque, 
splits this great river. Part of it now turns southward and swings back 
across toward Africa, making an eddy a couple of thousand miles wide in 
the South Atlantic, while another arm runs down the Patagfonian coast. 
But by far the largest part of the divided current is sent northward, past 



2 2 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

the coast of upper Brazil into the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico, where 
it is well heated, and thence poured into the North Atlantic, to become 
widely celebrated as the Gulf Stream. 

Gathered in full force, the Gulf Stream flows northward close along the 
coast of our Southern States at the rate of eighty or ninety miles a day 
until Cape Hatteras gives it a swerve away, when it strikes out to sea and 
pushes straight across to Spain, where a branch leaves it and runs north- 
ward between Iceland and the British Islands, while the main body turns 
southward to mingle again with the equatorial current from Africa and 
repeat its journey all over again. It is in the heart of this great circle of 
currents in the middle of the Atlantic that navigators find that dreaded 
region of heat and calms which they call the Doldrums ; and here, too, float 
round and round the wide, buoyant meadows of the Sargasso Sea. 

Meanwhile another most important cold stream is making its way 
through the Atlantic, known as the Arctic current. It comes down out of 
Baffin's Bay, joins a similar flood from the outer coast of Greenland, is 
thrown up to the surface by the Banks of Newfoundland (where meeting 
warm air, it produces those thick and prolonged fogs so common in that 
region), fills the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the bight between Nova Scotia 
and Cape Cod with chilly water, and finally dips under the Gulf Stream 
amid that commotion of winds and waters that makes the track of the 
steamships between New York and Europe the most tempestuous of 
ocean highways. It is the mingling of these warm and cold waters there 
which is chiefly responsible for the stormy condition of the North Atlantic. 

The Pacific has a similar arrangement of circulation north and south 
of the equator. The Antarctic waters form a cold stream named the Hum- 
boldt current, which pours up the western side of South America, keep- 
ing the climate down to a far more wintry condition than it is entitled to 
by latitude, until it reaches the southern trade-winds, which sweep it west- 
ward straight across the Pacific, where much of it is lost among the archi- 
pelagoes of Oceanica, and the southern part flows onward into the Indian 
Ocean. 

North of the Pacific equator a similar westward current moves steadily 
over the great waste of waters past the Sandwich Islands to the coast of 
China. From the Philippines and Japan northward, however, there is a 
far stronger flow, known to the Japanese as the Black Current (Kuroshiwo), 
which skirts the coast of japan and the Kurile Islands, makes these and 
Kamchatka habitable, then turns sharply east along the front of the foggy 
Aleutian chain of islands, and broadening and coolino- as it turns, swings 
down the temperate coast of Alaska and gradually disappears. These two 



WAVES, TIDES, AND CURRENTS 23 

great currents and their inclosed eddies are far broader and less distinct than 
those of the North and South Atlantic, but they follow the same laws. 

In a similar but lesser way the Indian Ocean has a strong westerly 
stream flowing straight across from Australia to South Africa, which is of 
immense help to ships returning from the East around the Cape of Good 
Hope. From Mozambique the water turns northward to make the return 
round, but here it is complicated by the peculiar conditions made by the 
inflow and outflow of the Red Sea, Arabian Gulf, and so on, and by the dis- 
turbing influences of the monsoons, until it can hardly be defined. 

Of all these currents none is as well marked as the Gulf Stream. Its 
blue water is in such contrast to the darker, greenish hue of the remainder 
of the ocean that sailors can often tell when they enter the edge of the cur- 
rent, half their vessel being in and half out of the stream. If you approach 
from the west you find that the water at first shows a warmth of only fifty 
or sixty degrees near the surface; but as you sail on, this increases until, 
opposite Sandy Hook, you may get as high a reading on the thermometer 
as eighty degrees, and opposite Florida above one hundred degrees. This 
difference in temperature between the eastern and western margins of the 
Gulf Stream is owing to the presence of the great river of Arctic water 
flowing in an opposite direction between the Gulf Stream and the shore. 
Off Florida the Gulf Stream is about sixty miles wide; off New York it 
is over one hundred miles in width, but is less sharply defined. Its depth 
is hard to determine, but certainly amounts to several hundred feet. It is 
worth remembering that, although some guesses had been made at it before, 
Dr. Benjamin Franklin was the first man to study the Gulf Stream and to 
tell us anything of its origin and course. 

The way in which some of these ocean currents affect the weather of the 
lands upon which they border shows how great is the influence of the sea 
upon land-climates ; indeed, it may be truthfully said that only the conti- 
nents and such great islands as Australia or Madagascar have any climate 
essentially distinct from that of the ocean in their quarter of the globe. But 
the equability that would reign over an ocean of quiet water, determining 
the amount of cold and heat by regular gradation in latitude between the 
equator and the poles, is completely upset by the great current-movements 
I have outlined. Scotland, for example, lies as far north as Labrador, and 
the latitude of London is above that of Lake Superior, yet neither have 
those terrible frosts and heavy snows which prevail in Canada, and make 
Labrador a land of ice almost uninhabitable. This difference is due almost 
wholly to the fact that the Gulf Stream pours its warm flood against the 
coast of Great Britain, and even tempers the Norwegian coast, keeps 



2 4 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



Barentz's Sea largely free from summer ice, and clothes Spitsbergen with 
vegetation, although within ten degrees of the pole. Hence in the forests 
of northern Scandinavia Laps can dwell in much comfort on a line with the 
frozen barren grounds north of Hudson Bay. 

On the other hand, the unfortunate coasts of Greenland are bathed in 
water chilled by months of captivity near the pole, and loaded with ice 
that cools down all the winds that blow ashore. Greenland itself is cov- 
ered with an unbroken sheet of ice, hundreds or thousands of feet thick, 
yet most of it is no farther north than Sweden. The whole northeastern 




■:^.... ^.~;^vV^V: :^;^ 



A ROUGH NIGHT IN THE GULF STREAM. 



coast of America, down to Labrador, is incrusted with ice ; and the region 
south of the St. Lawrence has a similar climate to Finland ; while even 
farther south, Boston, within the protecting arm of Cape Cod, is in winter 
a city of frost and snow and fog from November till April, when it really is 
little farther north than sunny Naples, where one laughs at winter. 

Similarly, in the Pacific Ocean, the northward movement of the great 
Japanese current makes the coast of China habitable and pleasant clear to 
the Sea of Okhotsk, gives the Aleutian archipelago a pretty decent climate, 
and causes the islands and coasts of Alaska and British Columbia to nour- 



WAVES, TIDES, AND CURRENTS 25 

ish the most magnificent forests in America, and to have a climate resem- 
bling that of Great Britain. Glasgow and Sitka are, in fact, in the same 
latitude, and under very similar climatic conditions, except that in Scotland 
there are no such lofty and cold mountains to precipitate constant rains as 
is the case along the northwestern margin of America. 

Similar examples and contrasts might be drawn in other parts of the 
world. The weather in the interior of continents is pretty much alike on 
similar latitudes the world round, varying with height ; but the climate of 
all sea-coasts is good or bad as a place to live, in accordance with the tem- 
perature of the water which the currents bring to that part of the ocean. 

But the currents of the ocean influence something besides the weather. 
Upon them depends to a considerable extent whether a certain part of the 
coast shall have one or another kind of animals dwelling in the salt water. 
This is not so much true of fishes as it is of the mollusks or "shell-fish," 
the worms that live in the mud of the tide-flats, the anemones, sea-urchins, 
starfish and little clinging people of the wet rocks, and of the jellyfishes, 
great and small, that swim about in the open sea. 

Nothing would injure most of these " small fry" more than a change in 
the water making it a few degrees colder or warmer than they were accus- 
tomed to. Since the constant circulation of the currents keeps the ocean 
water -in all its parts almost precisely of the same density, and food seems 
about as likely to abound in one district as another, naturalists have con- 
cluded that it is temperature which decides the extent of coast or of sea- 
area where any one kind of invertebrate animal will be found. It thus 
happens that the life of Cuban waters is different from that of our Caro- 
lina coast; and that, again, largely separate from what you will see off New 
York ; while Cape Cod seems to run out as a partition between the shore 
life south of it and a very different set of shells, sand-worms, and so forth, 
characteristic of the colder waters to the northward. 

Out in the ocean, however, the warm current of the Gulf Stream forms 
a genial pathway along which southern swimming animals, like the won- 
drously beautiful Portuguese-man-o'-war (Physalia), may wander northward 
for hundreds of miles beyond where they are found near shore ; yet if by 
chance they stray outside the limits of the warm Gulf Stream, they will at 
once be chilled to death, as happened once to millions of tile-fish. 

Ocean currents carry floating burdens long distances. They bring the 
icebergs to form those terrible fogs of Alaska and Newfoundland ; and 
they often bear far away the logs that float out of tropical rivers. 

These drifting logs often have plants growing upon them or contain 
quantities of seeds which are not injured by their short voyages. When, 



26 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



therefore, the coral polyps build up one of their reef-islands until it ap- 
pears above the waves, thither the currents bring roots and seeds from 
neighboring islands, and quickly plant them upon the new barren shores, 
so that in a few seasons the little islet becomes green and wooded and ready 
to hold its own against the winds and waves. Moreover, the same drifting 
stuff will carry land animals as passengers, — insects, snails of many kinds, 
reptiles, and even four-footed beasts, — and so not only give the island a 
vegetation, but populate it with various of the smaller animals. This seems 
to you, perhaps, a very accidental and haphazard way of fitting out a 
country so that presently it may support human beings, nor' is it the only 
means by which barren islands become productive ; but it is important as far 
as it goes, and when we study into the distribution of plants and animals 
in an archipelago, we are pretty sure to find those of the same sort upon 
islands that lie in the same current — even to the human inhabitants. 




A YOUNG SHIP-RIGGER. 




CHAPTER III 

THE BUILDING AND RIGGING OF SHIPS 

S late as 1861 an exploring ship was visited by natives of 
Western Australia, riding simple rough logs. To smooth 
and sharpen the log's end and then to hollow it out has 
been thought to be the first step taken by primitive man 
in his progress toward a boat; but I think the dugout 
probably came later, or at any rate no earlier, than the folding of bark into 
a trough and tying up the ends, as some savages are still content to do. 
In North America, where materials were favorable, this germ developed 
into the very highest type of canoe — the Algonkin birch-bark. It may 
have been an attempt to imitate the bark canoe in a more durable form 
which led to the laborious hollowing of duo-outs: but here again, in regions 
where suitable trees grew, the art developed so highly as to produce the 
great sea-boats of the Papuans and our Northwest Coast Indians, carved 
from a single log, yet able to carry sixty or more persons and their luggage. 
Such boats as these, when provided with sails, are practically "ships," and 
satisfy every need of their owners. 

Another root of naval architecture lies in the raft, which long ago 
reached a high degree of usefulness in the sea-going- balsa of western South 
America. It is probable that the South Sea catamaran is a clever out- 
growth of experience with a raft. In Polynesia it took the form of two 
great canoes, exactly equal, fastened close together and covered by a single 
central deck ; and such are the seaworthiness and speed of these double 
boats, that the Polynesians voyage hundreds of miles in them. 

Similar in purpose — namely, to insure stability — are the various outrig- 
gers that at once characterize and distinguish among themselves the native 
craft of the South Seas. This device consists of a beam of the lightest 
obtainable wood, usually about half as long as the canoe, which rests upon 
the water parallel to and a few feet away from the side of the boat, and is 
connected with its gunwale by elastic rods or planks. Sometimes these are 



28 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



covered, or partly covered, by a light platform, and there are many varia- 
tions in form ; but the idea in all cases is to keep the boat from overturning. 
In many parts of the world logs could be obtained large enough 
only for a narrow bottom or hollowed keel, and the remainder of the boat 
was built up of planks and pieces ingeniously pegged and knit together 
with treenails, ratan, and cords made of vegetable fibers that tightened 
when wet. The Madras surf-boats are a familiar example in civilized 
waters of boats made in this way which have great elasticity, and out of 
them have developed, without much change, the swift proas of the Ma- 
lays, and the junks of China, Korea, and Japan. One device for stitching 
these boats firmly together was the leaving of ridges on the inner side of 
the planks or pieces, through holes in which they could be tied to each 

other and to the inner framework without 
making a hole reaching the outside. This 
system seems to have been earlier than the 
use of treenails. 

Of similar construction, apparently, were 
the boats of the Egyptians and other peoples 
about the eastern end of the Mediterranean 
and the Red Sea, which, as far back as three 
thousand years before Christ, at least, had 
reached the size and capabilities of true ships, 
making, as we shall presently see, extensive 
sea voyages. Pictures of them remain in 
the very ancient tombs, and show that the planking consisted of pieces 
about three feet square, which were laid on overlapping, like shingles on a 
roof, and fastened to the framework by wooden treenails. The Pheni- 
cians, and their pupils the Greeks and Romans, improved on these methods 
in various ways, at last substituting iron, copper, and bronze nails or bolts 
(which would not rust) for the wooden pegs of their ancestors. 

All of these boats and those of all western Europe (of which the best 
outside the Mediterranean were the vikings' ships) differed in one essen- 
tial point of construction from Oriental ships : instead of making the shell 
of the vessel, and fitting into it a framework of connected braces, as the 
Malays and Polynesians did (and yet do), they laid a keel, bending it up or 
setting into it stem- and stern-posts at the ends, and inserted along its sides 
curving upright timbers, well styled "ribs," which swelled out amidships, 
and narrowed in forward and aft, making a skeleton of the shape the hull 
was intended to be. Finally, over and upon this well-braced framework 
were securely fastened the planks, which were narrow and ran lengthwise 




PROA, WITH OUTRIGGER. 



THE BUILDING AND RIGGING OF SHIPS 29 

in every case except that of the ancient Nile boats. The Scandinavian 
vikings developed a craft of their own, one of the most interesting of the 
ancient ships; and to these northern craftsmen is traceable the principal in- 
fluence that has shaped British (and consequently American) ship-building 
and seamanship. This early Scandinavian boat was always made of oak, 
sharp at both ends, and rather shallow, the general form being much like 
that of a modern whaleboat, with a great rounding keel — if, indeed, this 
wonderful sea-craft may not be a lineal descendant of the viking ship. 
The hewn planks were attached to the keel and to the ribs (usually single, 
naturally bent V-shaped prongs of oak) in a most ingenious and serviceable 
manner, and they were always overlapping or clinker (i. e., clencher) built. 
Several of these and other prehistoric boats have been found buried in peat- 
moss and in mounds in Germany, Denmark, and Scandinavia, and have 
been described by various writers. 

The motive power of all the early boats was found in human arms, 
wielding paddles or oars. It is said that the oldest forms of paddles of 
which we have any record among the Egyptian or Assyrian hieroglyphs 
show them to have been shaped somewhat like the arm and hand, and that 
similar paddles were to be seen a few decades ago on the canals in Holland. 
This is natural, because undoubtedly the first paddle ever used was the 
naked hand. Short paddles were soon found less powerful than long ones; 
but in order to work the latter it was necessary to brace them against some- 
thing in the middle. Notches were therefore cut in the edge of the boat, or 
thole-pins were inserted, the paddle became an oar, and by and by boatmen 
learned the art of feathering, and so forth. 

Steering could be done of old, as now, with a turn of the rearmost pad- 
dle in a canoe, and as canoes enlarged, the steering-paddle was lengthened. 
As the sterns of the ancient boats were usually either sharp, like the prows, 
or else built up into an ornamental height, the most convenient place for 
the steering-oar was over the right side, where it was balanced in a loop of 
cable, or otherwise, as close to the after end of the boat as practicable, and 
then a cross-piece extended inboard from the handle, enabling the steers- 
man to move it more easily by giving him the benefit of leverage. Such 
was the arrangement of steering-gear in all the ancient Mediterranean 
boats, and it is to a similar arrangement in the sea-going craft of our north- 
ern ancestors that we owe our words stern and starboard, which originally 
meant " steering-place " and " steering-side." The modern rudder is sub- 
stantially the same oar, set upright, tiller and all, and hinged to the stern- 
post ; in fact, the word has descended from the old Teutonic name for "oar," 
and all gradations between steering-oar and true rudder may still be found. 



2,0 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

Though some romantic stories are told by the old mythologists as to its 
origin, the idea of rigging was as natural and practical in its development 
as that of hull or steering-gear. That a strong breeze moves a canoe, and 
that, if a man in a canoe holds his robe outstretched or a thick bush up- 
right, the force will send him along without the labor of paddling, and 
lengthwise rather than sidewise, because that is the direction of least resis- 
tance, were facts quickly and gratefully seized upon by the earliest boatmen. 
To have a skin ready for the purpose, and to set up a pole and ropes to 
hold it in position, were easy matters ; yet in this simple arrangement you 
have the first sail. 

But skins were too heavy and valuable for such a purpose, except in 
such limited circumstances as those of the Arctic Eskimos. 

Persons who spent much time on the water, therefore, like the most 
ancient Egyptians and the islanders of the Chinese and South seas, soon 
devised a way of weaving rushes or splints of bamboo into broad mats, and 
thus were able, on account of their lightness, to carry much larger and more 
effective sails, which were kept outstretched by one or more cross- poles or 
spars, and could be taken down quickly. Many such sails are in use to this 
day not only among Asiatic and African boatmen, but on the northwest 
coast of Canada. A fine example hangs above my desk as I write. 

With the discovery of how to make cloth and cordage of woolen, silken, 
hempen, and cotton fibers (and in Egypt of papyrus), came a still better 
material for ropes and sails, since cloth was so much lighter that a far 
greater extent of it could be spread than before ; its flexibility enabled it to 
be handled, changed, and rolled up snugly, and its cheapness encouraged 
its use and the practice of navigation generally. We read of silken sails 
on the royal barges of medieval times, but they could hardly have exceeded 
in strength or elegance those of the fine Phenician ships that carried the 
commerce of the world twenty-five centuries ago. " Fine linen with broid- 
ered work from Egypt was that which thou spreadest forth to be thy sail," 
exclaims the sacred chronicler (Ezekiel xxvii. 7). Hempen cloth, indeed, 
was preferred for sails until the present century, as is expressed in our word 
canvas, which is derived from the Latin name of flax ; but now cotton has 
mainly superseded it. 

Anciently the sails were often colored, purple or vermilion being the 
badge of a monarch or an admiral. Black denoted mourning. " In some 
cases the topsail seems to have been colored, while the sail below was 
plain ; and frequently a patchwork of colors was produced by using differ- 
ent stuffs." Various inscriptions and devices were also woven or painted 
on the sails, sometimes in gold. The Venetians and Greeks do the same 



THE BUILDING AND RIGGING OF SHIPS 




■&. 



>M- 




REEFING A TOPSAIL IN A STORM. 



to this day, adding a gaudy feature to the lovely Levantine sea-scenery ; 
and the sails of the North Sea fishermen are turned to a rich red and yel- 
low by the tanning mixture in which they soak their canvas. 

As for the shape, all rigs seem reducible to two types — the lateen and 
the square. The former is characteristic of the eastern half of the world, 



32 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 




the latter of the western half, including primitive America, where, so far as 
I know, only plain, rectangular sails were ever made by the Indians. 

There must be some good reason for a broad division like this, and it is 
found in the different conditions which eastern and western seamen had to 
meet. The lateen seems to have originated in the Indian Ocean, is seen 
wherever Arabs are, and has been taken eastward by the Malays as far into 
the South Sea Islands as their influence extended. It is a huge, triangular 
canvas extended at a steep angle by a long, flexible yard balanced across the 
mast to which it is loosely hung, and controlled by a sheet attached to the 
free corner. It is thus very lofty, and therefore suitable to a region of 

steady and usually light winds. 
This is the characteristic rig of the 
Arab dhow — a model that has 
come down from remote antiquity 
and is capable of excellent service 
on the northern and eastern coasts 
of Africa, where it prevails. It 
was probably in a small vessel of 
this kind that the Apostle Paul suf- 
fered shipwreck ; and an outgrowth 
and perfection of it is the dahabi- 
yeh of the Nile, now become fa- 
mous as a tourists' pleasure-boat, 
whose immensely lofty sail is precisely adapted to catch every faint breath 
that comes across the river from the deserts. Such sails are spread like 
the great pointed wings of an albatross over the narrow decks of the 
Malayan " flying proas " and other swift South Sea craft, and urge upon 
their fleet errands the xebecs, saics, feluccas, and other light craft of the 
Levant and Barbary coasts, identified with former piracy and modern 
smuggling, as well as with fishing and freighting. Some of these boats 
have two or three masts, the xebec and felucca being notable because 
of the curious forward rake of the foremast ; and in that extremely pic- 
turesque Portuguese fishing-boat called the muleta there are, in addition 
to the big lateen, a huge free second sail ballooning- out to leeward from 
the tip of the yard, and a host of little flying jibs forward, which somebody 
has well likened to a flock of birds hovering about the prow. Good ex- 
amples of lateen-rigged boats may be seen in Louisiana, built and manned 
by the Greek, Maltese, and Sicilian fishermen. 

The difficulty of handling in rough or squally weather this long yard 
and expansive canvas makes it unsuitable for such weather as prevails in 



A HONG-KONG "PULL-AWAY" BOAT. 

Showing method of hoisting and reefing matting sails. 



THE BUILDING AND RIGGING OF SHIPS 33 

the western Mediterranean or on the Atlantic ; and to meet these stormy 
and frequently changing conditions, and obtain a rig with which they could 
beat to windward, the earliest rough-water seamen devised square sails. 
What the rig of the ancient far-voyaging Phenician ships was we have no 
means of knowing, but the indications are that they carried lug sails, which 
appear to be the simplest and earliest of the "square" forms; that is, sails 
suspended from short cross-yards, and controlled by ropes (sheets) attached 
to their lower corners. Such at least were the sails of the Roman and 
Greek merchant and war vessels of the classical era, and they persist to- 
day in the local fishing-smacks of the stormy Adriatic. 

The true home of the square-sailed craft, however, was northern Europe, 
where the Norwegian, Dutch, and Norman coasters ,and fishermen of to- 
day probably represent fairly well the rigs of the bold viking boats of 
twelve or fifteen centuries ago. 

Of the slow development of ship-building during the middle ages we 
have little information, but in the fourteenth century we begin to hear of a 
revival in the art, as, indeed, was needful when the long voyages were to be 
undertaken which the discovery of the mariner's compass had then rendered 
possible. In this revival the Venetians and Genoese took the lead, but the 
English were not far behind. There was a large variety of vessels in that 
day, rude though they were, and called by names we should hardly recognize. 

Though the hulls of these vessels were large and tight, their shape was 
poorly adapted for speed or for safety in bad weather. Their decks were built 
up into immensely high structures at the stern and bows, after the old galley 
model, and to form forts for soldiers. Our word "forecastle" reminds us 
of this old usage. Their masts were single sticks, — not divided into top- 
masts, — and hence, necessarily, were thick and heavy ; and they bore upon 
their summits large "top-castles" where marines stood in battle to shoot 
down upon the enemy's decks. This weight above, with the height of 
surface exposed to the wind and the clumsy rigging, made it impossible 
for them to sail safely except with a fair and gentle wind (they never at- 
tempted it otherwise), and they were required to carry an enormous quan- 
tity of ballast. There was so little room for anything except armament, 
sleeping-berths, and a cooking-room in the war-ships that every war fleet 
had to take with it small vessels carrying provisions ; and the case was 
little better in respect to merchant vessels. 

The ships in which Vasco da Gama, Columbus, the Cabots, and other 
explorers did their marvelous work were no better than this. Strangely 
inefficient they seem to us, and we wonder that some of the simplest contri- 
vances in rigging were not adopted centuries before they came into use 
3 



34 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

until we remember that it was not for long, speedy voyages that vessels 
were intended previous to the sixteenth century (with certain exceptions 
in northern seas), but simply as a means of carrying slowly from one coast- 
port to another a great number of men or huge cargoes. 

However, as the known world widened and trade grew, inventions by 
private ship-owners continually improved the rigging, though it would be 
hard to find a class of men slower to change old ways for new than the sea- 
men. Columbus's "caravel " had four short masts, the forward one having 
a square lug-sail and the three after masts lateens. It was very gradually, 
indeed, that lateens were given up, and most curious combinations of sails 
were to be seen in this transition period of the fifteenth and sixteenth centu- 
ries. The old-fashioned Mediterranean barca, for example, had as foremast 
the forward-raking " trinchetto " of the felucca, with a huge lateen, while the 
mainmast bore three square sails and the mizzen two lugs ; and in addition 
to this two banks of oars were provided! In fact, it was not until 1800 
that English frigates substituted a spanker for the lateen-rigged mizzen. 

Another curiosity of rigging possessed by these solidly built, beautifully 
carved vessels (no such exterior decoration has been seen since as adorned 
the ships of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries) was the quaint little 
spritsail-topmast. By this time the single heavy pole-mast had been super- 
seded by the three built-up masts and topmasts, braced by stays, made 
accessible by rope ladders (shrouds), and carrying several tiers of topsails 
instead of only one. A bowsprit had been added, also, and this became 
almost a fourth mast, so loaded were it and its stays with various small sails. 
Its outer end bore this miniature spritsail-mast, with topmast, shrouds, and 
tiny sails all complete, surmounted by a pole-head, or jack-staff, upon -which 
was hoisted the flag since known as the jack, and always now carried at the 
prow of any national boat or ship, even such as the shapeless monitors. 

But gradually, out of the experience of long voyages, the competition 
of merchants, and as an effect of improved gunnery and consequent changes 
in naval tactics, the lofty deck-structures, great tops, needless outworks, and 
odd sails, like this spritsail, were got rid of, and vessels were trimmed down 
and equalized until they became, as now, "ship-shape, Bristol-fashion." 

The ringing' of modern sailing-vessels is divided into "standing" and 
"running"; the former includes the masts, their stays, now generally made 
of wire, and such other rope-work as is not adjustable. 

The sails, also, may be assigned to two classes ; first, those attached to 
a mast, with or without boom and gaff, or to a stay, which are called 
fore-and-aft sails because they may be ranged lengthwise of the ship; 
and, second, those suspended by their upper and lower edges to or between 



THE BUILDING AND RIGGING OF SHIPS 



35 



spars or " yards" swung across the mast, and known as "square" sails, the 
lowermost of which are really lugs. All the variations of shape seen in 
America, except the rare and local lateens, can be counted in one or the 
other of these classes. 

The styles of rig visible in American waters are not many, and are 
easily learned. Let us begin with the simplest — that having one mast. 

The cat-boat (z. e., cat-rigged boat) is one having a simple pole-mast 
stepped very near the bow, and a fore-and-aft sail laced to a gaff and boom 




ANCIENT CARAVELS. 

Copied from old manuscripts and tapestries. 



and managed by a sheet. This is the rig of the ordinary American sail- 
boat, which is noted for its ability in pointing up into the wind. In Eng- 
land it is known as a una-boat. Sometimes the peak of the sail is sus- 
tained by a little loose spar called a "sprit," instead of a gaff. In the 
chapter on Yachting will be found further illustrations of these small rigs. 
A sloop has one mast (with topmast) set well back from the stem, and 
a bowsprit. The sloop-rig consists of a fore-and-aft mainsail, spread by 
means of a boom and gaff, a gaff-topsail, a forestaysail, and one or more 
jibs. A cutter is now substantially the same thing, though formerly some- 
what distinguished. Both are derived, probably, from the northern lugger, 
and old-time pictures show queer intermediate forms, often having a 
square topsail instead of a gaff. Thus the earlier of the Hudson River 



36 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

sloops, which were not only the freight-carriers but the packet-boats be- 
tween New York and Albany from the time the Dutch introduced them 
until steamboats took their place, had the top -of the mainsail supported, 
lug-fashion, by a short yard, and carried above that a square topsail' but 
this rig was steadily modified toward the modern type to make it faster 
and safer in the sudden squalls that beset this hill-girt river. 

Of two-masted rigs, the oldest is the brig, which has square sails on 
both masts, just like the main and mizzen masts of a full-rigged ship. 
Then there is the brigantine, a slight modification of the brig, and the Jier- 
maphrodite brig, or brig- schooner, with fore-and-aft sails on' the after mast. 
This kind of vessel has been greatly modified (one of its most extraordinary 
forms was the ketcli), is less common now than formerly, and took its 
name, which is derived from the same source as "brigand," from the fact 
that it was the most common rig of the pirates of the sixteenth and seven- 
teenth centuries. Its place was largely taken for small vessels by a purely 
American invention, and one of the greatest of Yankee notions — the 
schooner. The schooner was originally small, and had two masts ; but now 
is often built of great size, with as many as five or six masts, each of which 
has a fore-and-aft rig — that is, a sloop's mainsail and gaff-topsail on every 
mast, with forestaysail and several jibs in front, and staysails between. 
Sometimes a square sail is placed on the foretopmast, which makes the 
vessel a topsail schooner. The first one was built by a Gloucester sea-cap- 
tain about 181 7, and proved so satisfactory that all the fishing-fleet were 
soon rigged in that way, whence the idea has spread to all parts of the 
world. 

Until recently, however, vessels large enough to have three masts were 
always "square-rigged," as barks, barkentines, or ships; for, although we 
have come to speak of any big vessel as a "ship," yet in proper nautical 
language a ship is a vessel rigged in a particular way, and it is nothing 
else. In fact, in olden times they were sometimes very small — too small 
to be economical, as we now know. The " Naval Chronicle" for 1807 con- 
tained an account of a full-rigged ship of only thirty-six tons' burden, 
which for one hundred and thirty years previous to that date had been 
cruising about the English coast, and may be doing so yet, for aught I know. 

Masts have their proper names : the tallest is in the middle of the vessel, 
and is called the mainmast j the next tallest stands in front of it, and is the 
foi'emast ; and the third is in the stern, and is named mizzenmast, because 
it carries the mizzen (sail). All the rigging, except that belonging to the 
bowsprit, is repeated for each mast, and each piece is named with reference 
to the mast or part of the mast or appropriate sail to which it belongs: as, 



THE BUILDING AND RIGGING OF SHIPS 



37 



for example, main shrouds, fore shrouds, mizzen shrouds, mizzen-royal, main- 
topsail yard, foretopmast studdingsail downhaul, and so on. In a proper full- 
rigged ship all the sails upon the masts, except the spanker, are square, and 
are named from the sections of the mast opposite which they hang. Counting 
from the deck to the truck, or tiptop of the mast, they are as follows : on the 
mainmast, mainsail or maincourse, maintopsail, maintopgallant-sail, main- 
royal, and skysail ; on the foremast, foresail or forecourse, foretopsail, fore- 




A FIJI ISLAND OUT-RIGGED CANOE, APPROACHING A FULL-RIGGED SHIP HOVE-TO. 

topgallant, foreroyal, and skysail ; on the mizzenmast, cross-jack (and behind 
it the spanker, mizzen, or driver), mizzentopsail, mizzentopgallant, mizzen- 
royal, and skysail. The bowsprit sails are the forestaysail, foretopmast 
staysail, jib, flying jib, and outer jib, or jibstaysail. Each of the stays run- 
ning diagonally from mast to mast bears a triangular sail known by the 
name of the particular stay on which it hangs, as maintopmast staysail, and 
so on — nine in all. In addition to all this, a little sail is sometimes set 
above the skysail, and another under the bowsprit, while out beyond the 
ends of the yards are often extended light additional spars carrying stud- 
dingsails. In favorable weather, when the captain wishes to "crowd all 
on," as sometimes can be done for days and weeks together before the trades, 
almost forty sails may be spread, and the ship moves grandly along under a 

3* 



38 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



swaying cloud of canvas that reaches far beyond her rails on each side, and 
towers more than one hundred feet into the steady air. 

But the cost of building, maintaining, and handling these grand fab- 
rics is so great that they are steadily diminishing in numbers, and perhaps 
are destined before long to disappear altogether from the seas to which they 
have lent so much picturesqueness and romance. The supremacy of the 
schooner seems likely to prove complete. Unwilling to concede everything 
at once, many vessels are now rigged with square sails on the foremast and 
mainmast and fore-and-aft sails on the mizzen (a bark), or square sails on the 
foremast only, and the others schooner-rigged (a barkentine); but even these 
are disappearing in favor of the three-masted or four-masted schooner. This 
is due to the fact that the schooner rig will sail closer to the wind and gives 
as much force in proportion as the ship style, while it is far less expensive 
to build, and more quickly and easily managed, not requiring nearly as many 
men, and therefore being cheaper to run as well as to set up. It is for these 
reasons that I have called it one of the greatest of Yankee notions. 




A MULETA, OR PORTUGUESE LATEEX-RIGGED FISHING-BOAT. 



CHAPTER IV 



EARLY VOYAGES AND EXPLORATIONS 



PART I PREVIOUS TO THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 



prr>-- 1 ^-i- r ^ e >^-^r^QtI 



jHEREVER it may have been that man first appeared upon 
the earth, the period must certainly have been incalculably 
long ago, for he had time to spread to all parts of the habi- 
table globe long before any sort of record begins. Little, 
if any, part of the world has yet been found where the evi- 
dences of man's residence in the long-forgotten past do not exist. So long 
ago that all tradition of it is forgotten, and only the imperishable stone imple- 
ments they used remain as traces of their presence, mankind had reached and 
settled the farthest northern and eastern coasts of Europe and Asia, and the 
southern extremities of Africa and India. These might have been reached 
by land ; but similar traces exist in many islands which, so far as we can see, 
could never have been connected with each other or with any continent by 
lands now submerged (as perhaps has been the case in some other islands) 
since man originated. Such places, then, could have been reached and 
colonized only by means of boats, and that at an exceedingly remote time. 

Some hint of what these prehistoric navigators might have been able to 
do may be gathered from the performances that we know of in the South 
Sea, where almost every island and coral atoll that could support a colony 
has apparently been inhabited, since long before even tradition begins, 
although some of them, like the Hawaiian group, are separated from all 
others by hundreds of miles of open sea. 

It is exceedingly interesting and suggestive to read in a work like Pro- 
fessor Friedrich Ratzel's " History of Mankind," of the dispersion of popu- 
lation over the islands of the South Pacific Ocean, where a mixed population 
of black and yellow races possessed themselves of the whole of Oceanica 
long before white men had even heard of that part of the world. This 

39 



40 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

astounding- fact gains in significance when we remember that wide tracts 
of very deep ocean divide these islands, many of which are so small that 
they were found by exploring navigators only with difficulty. Cook and 
Beechey and other early voyagers note finding upon certain islands 
people who had come thither in their own boats over distances of six or 
eight hundred miles ; and there are many instances of castaways surviving 
voyages of one thousand or fifteen hundred miles, even against the trade- 
winds. But these involuntary voyages were no longer than many others 
undertaken for war or trade, or because of famine or a mere love of 
wandering. Over-population of the limited spaces of most islands and 
groups led to the colonization of others ; and it must often have been 
necessary to go far away to seek unoccupied or thinly peopled refuges. 
This could not have been done had men not been good shipwrights, not 
only, but careful students of the heavens by whose sun and moon and stars 
they steered, aiding themselves with charts made of sticks. The remotest 
groups, like the Sandwich Islands and Easter Island, were found and set- 
tled too long ago even for tradition to retain more than a fabulous story 
about it. "These Vikings of the Pacific," says Ratzel, "continued to dis- 
cover even small and remote islets. In the whole of the Pacific there is 
not one island of any size of which it was left to Europeans to demonstrate 
the habitability." It has even been argued that the continent of America 
was peopled by Pacific Islanders, who made their way to it from Polynesia; 
but of this there is no direct evidence, and it seems unlikely, because the 
prevailing winds and currents flow from South America, rather than toward 
it, in this part of the Pacific. 

But leaving these dim old times when barbarous men voyaged far and 
wide over seas, and races mingled that were born on opposite sides of wide 
waters, let us note what traveling our civilized ancestors did. 

The evidences of ruined walls, graves, carvings, and stone tools show 
that that earliest of civilized races of which we now have any knowledge — 
the Hittites — were acquainted not only with the coasts of the Mediterra- 
nean Sea, but had boldly rounded the headlands of Spain, skirted the stormy 
Bay of Biscay, and settled colonies in England and France. Who were 
these Hittites? They were an Asiatic people, dwelling in the Taurus 
Mountains of the eastern part of Asia Minor, who increased into the most 
powerful nation of that part of the world about two thousand years before 
Christ, and carried on wars with the Egyptians, among others, until at last 
they were overcome by the rise of the empire of Assyria, north of them, 
about eleven hundred years before Christ. Doubtless they explored the 
African coast somewhat south of the Red Sea, and very likely knew the 



EARLY VOYAGES AND EXPLORATIONS 4 1 

Persian Gulf and the route to India. My own opinion is that we are 
likely to give the people of antiquity too little credit rather than too much 
in the direction of a knowledge of geography. 

Meanwhile there was rising along the Mediterranean from Palestine 
northward the most able commercial race of antiquity, who styled them- 
selves Canaanites, as in the Bible, but whom the Greeks called Phenicians, 
the name by which we know them best. Their capitals were the cities 
Tyre and Sidon, the ruins of which are still to be seen on the Syrian coast 
a little way south of Beirut, and the wealth and commercial power of which 
will give us some interesting paragraphs for a future chapter. Suffice it 
here to say that their rulers were foremost among the loosely organized 
"nations" between the Nile and the Euphrates, and that they maintained 
their power through a long period, not only by their wealth and enterprise 
as traders, but mainly through their skill and energy as navigators. As we 
shall see when we come to consider their commerce in Chapter VII, they 
excelled in the building of ships, in an understanding of how to steer long 
courses by the heavenly bodies, and in sea knowledge generally. It is well 
known that the Phenicians traded in their ships down the west coast of 
Africa to and beyond the Canary Islands, which they also visited ; made 
repeated voyages to the French coast and the British Islands ; and may 
very likely have gone around into the Baltic, for they knew of its amber, 
though this might have been obtained by the overland trade routes. It is 
believed that they ascertained that Africa was, in fact, a huge island ; for it 
was to prove this supposition that Pharaoh Necho (or Naku or Neku) II, 
an enlightened Egyptian monarch who reigned in the sixth century before 
Christ, hired a crew of Phenician seamen to man an expedition whose pur- 
pose it was to circumnavigate Africa. These men started down the Red 
Sea in 611 b. c, and in 605 is. c. came sailing home through the Strait of 
Gibraltar, to the delight of their friends and confusion of a kino-dom full of 
I-told-you-sos. 1 Just twenty centuries elapsed before any one else repeated 
that feat, so far as I know;, and no wonder it was forgotten. This same 
Necho II did even more for maritime commerce, for he attempted to com- 
plete the canal, begun long before his time, connecting the Mediterranean 
with the Red Sea, and seems to have made a passage along which barges 
and small boats might be towed, which remained open for many centuries, 

1 This is related by the Greek historian Herodotus, He argues that the construction of their ships, with flat 

and has often been denied, especially by the older bottoms and low masts, enabled these hardy voyagers to 

writers; but the " Encyclopaedia Britannica " gives it ere- keep close to the land, and to enter all the rivers and 

dence, and tells us that the latest and best critic of the harbors for food and water. I think, therefore, that we 

geography of Herodotus, Major Rennel, maintains the may believe that Herodotus recorded what really hap- 

possibility of such a voyage, and believes it was made, pened, even if we reject some details. 



A'- 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



and in part followed the line now covered by the Suez Canal. Earlier than 
that Darius, the Persian conqueror of Egypt, had dug a navigable canal 
from the Nile to the Red Sea ; and this shows that there must have been 
large traffic in both seas at that time to justify such tasks. 

By this time the power and prosperity of Tyre and Sidon had declined, 
and Carthage, originally a colonial city, had become the most important 
center of Phenician influence ; and from this port there sailed a century 
later (perhaps about 500 b. c.) an exploring expedition under a Carthagin- 
ian king named Hanno, intended to study and establish trade with the 
West African coast. It was a large and powerful fleet, said to number 
sixty galleys ; and that women were taken as well as men shows that it was 
intended to form settlements at suitable points, as, indeed, was done. The 
account of it has been preserved in a short writing called the " Periplus," by 
an ancient but unknown Greek ; and this inscription is regarded by most 
scholars as entirely authentic, since all its details conform to modern know- 
ledge, even though it is impossible to identify surely the various points 
mentioned. It tells us that the terminus of Hanno's exploration was an 
island beyond a gulf called Noti Cornu, in which he found a company of 
hairy women, whom the interpreters called gorillas. It was in memory of 
this that the manlike apes which a few years ago were discovered on the 
west coast of Africa received the same name ; but they are not known any- 
where north of the Kamerun Mountains, while the farthest point any 
critic is willing to believe reached by Hanno is the Bight of Benin, some 

distance north of the Kameruns. It 
is easy to believe that the inquiring 
Carthaginians might have heard of 
these apes, — or perhaps of chimpan- 
zees, now found as iar north as the 
Gambia River, — and reported actually 
seeing them, in order to add glory to 
their name. At any rate, this expe- 
dition increased largely the ancient 
knowledge of the sea in that direction ; 
and navigators now knew the shores 
of the Atlantic from the Gulf of Guinea- 
to the North Sea ; but there the know- 
ledge of the world seems to have rested for more than a dozen centuries, 
principally, no doubt, because there seemed nothing beyond, either north 
or south, to invite the merchants who then, as ever since, have been the 
principal promoters of discovery. It is only within the past century that 




AN EARLY ROMAN BIREME. 



EARLY VOYAGES AND EXPLORATIONS 



43 




voyages of discovery have been undertaken purely for the sake of the in- 
crease of knowledge. Previous to that the object was always either mili- 
tary conquest or the extension of trade. 

Attention was now turned to the eastern seas, overland routes to India 
and even to China having become well known both to conquering armies 
and to mercantile caravans. The 
coasts of Abyssinia, of Arabia, of the 
Persian Gulf, and of western India 
were settled by a semi-civilized peo- 
ple for a thousand, perhaps two thou- 
sand, years before the Christian era ; 
but the) - were broken into many inde- 
pendent tribes ; and their ships, if they 
had any, only crept from one harbor 
to another near by, and neither knew 
nor cared what lay beyond the farther 
headlands. As time went on, how- 
ever, and strong kingdoms arose in 
Egypt, Arabia, Syria, and Persia, 
consolidating these scattered tribes 
into nations, it became necessary to 
learn the sea-routes between more distant ports. Thus it came about that 
while the Pharaohs still flourished, Arabic commerce extended regularly along 
the coast of Abyssinia, and doubtless as far southward as Zanzibar, while 
the Malays had probably already reached and colonized Madagascar. 
There seems no reason to doubt that those remarkable ruins in stone which 
the late Mr. Thomas Bent has studied at and near Zimbabwe, in Mashona- 
land, East Africa, are the work of Arabian gold-miners, made perhaps a thou- 
sand or more years ago ; and it is pretty certain that Arabic seamen even 
at that date regularly traded as far as the island of Madagascar. 

The Persian Gulf has been another nursery of a seafaring people since 
long before the record of history begins ; yet so slow were they to learn of 
anything outside their capes, that it was accounted a wonderful thing when, 
in the winter of 325— 4 B. c, Nearchus, the admiral of the fleet of Alexander 
the Great, voyaged from the mouth of the Indus to the head of the Persian 
Gulf, Soon afterward, however, under the house of the Ptolemies, rulers of 
Egypt, fleets sailed regularly between Red Sea ports and India and Ceylon. 

But now for many long centuries the boundaries of the known world 
were not to be much enlarged (although methods of navigation were im- 
proved and commerce continued within the limits of Roman and Arabic 



SHIP OF PTOLEMY PHILOPATOR. 

(About 240 B. c. Banks of oars and lug-sails.) 



44 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

dominion), for we know of the discovery of no new coasts until we begin to 
hear of the doings of an independent and far northern people, scarcely 
known to the civilized world, and certainly not regarded as a part of it. 

On the bleak shores of the North Sea, where the fiords and creek- 
mouths of Scandinavia gave shelter not only from foreign enemies, but 
from each other, there had grown up a seafaring race of men, of Gothic 
ancestry, who had settled on the coasts of what are now Norway, Sweden, 
and Denmark. They styled themselves Norsemen, or men of the North, 
and did not object to the title Vikings, or Fiord-men ; but their enemies 
called them pirates, and with much reason, for they ravaged and ruled all 
the coasts both north and south of the Baltic, voyaging northward to the 
"land of the midnight sun," colonizing northern France in the tenth cen- 
tury, and taking practical possession of all they pleased of the British 
Isles — Ireland and northern Scotland in particular. Here these Norsemen 
met equally fierce foes, or found congenial partners, as the case might be, 
in the Scottish and Irish seamen of that day, who were themselves bold 
freebooters and wide voyagers ; and when, in the middle of the ninth cen- 
tury, the Northmen had discovered, as they supposed, the Faroe Islands 
and Iceland, a little exploration soon showed them that the Irish culdccs, or 
priests of the Christian church planted in Ireland by St. Patrick, had been 
there before them — first in 725, according to the Irish chronicles of Dicui- 
lus, who seems worthy of credence. Indeed, it is believed by some anti- 
quarians that these Irish sea-wanderers had colonized Iceland at the same 
early age; had reached Newfoundland, and regularly resorted to its banks 
for fishing and whaling (five hundred years before Cabot) ; and were even 
acquainted with the coast of the North American continent, where tradi- 
tions assert that their colonies were planted on what are now the shores of 
Virginia and the Carolinas, which they called New Ireland. 

These are entertaining old stories, and may have some truth in them, 
for it seems certain that the Irish reached Iceland, at least, in the eighth 
centurv. Icelandic history, however, begins with the visits of Norsemen in 
850, followed by others, who, a few years later, took colonies there and set 
up an island population which before a century had elapsed numbered 
more than fifty thousand people. They had a republican form of govern- 
ment, and were quite independent of the King of Norway (Harold the 
Fair-haired, great-great-grandfather of William the Conqueror), from whom 
the earlier colonists had fled because of his oppression ; but they kept up 
acquaintance with the mother-country, and merchants and adventurers were 
continually voyaging between Iceland and all the islands and coasts of that 
region, using stanch vessels sometimes one hundred feet in length, and 



EARLY VOYAGES AND EXPLORATIONS 



45 



eminently seaworthy; yet their only guides were the stars and such signs 
as seafaring men read in the water and weather about them. 

It continually happened, however, that they were driven far out of their 
courses, in such a region of gales, currents, and fogs as is the North Atlantic. 
In one such adventure, in the year 876, a sea-captain named Gunnbjorn 
Ulfkragesson was driven far to the west of Iceland, and when he got back 
to port told his friends that he had seen land. Probably he also told them 







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A WAR EXPEDITION OF THE VIKINGS. 

Showing build, steering-oar, and rig (colored lug-sail), of Scandinavian exploring ships in the North Atlantic. 



that so far as he could see there was nothing but icy mountains, of which 
they already had enough, for no one seems to have investigated the matter 
further until more than a century later, when a turbulent viking ol the 
rebellious house of Erik, called Erik the Red, was banished from Norway 
and fled to Iceland with his followers. He was soon convicted there also oi 
manslaughter in a neighborhood quarrel, and again condemned to banish- 
ment. Iceland wanted to get rid of him and his brawlers, and Europe 
would not let him return. Whither should he go ? 

Then his thoughts turned toward the strange land in the west that 
tradition said Gunnbjorn had sighted. It is believed by the most careful 



46 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

students that Gunnbjorn's " rocks " were volcanic islets, which have now 
disappeared, and are represented only by certain shoals ; but it would not 
be incredible that he had caught a glimpse of the Greenland coast itself. 

At any rate, Erik had little hesitation in starting out to rediscover them. 
Why should he ? Those rough-riders of the sea were used to voyages of 
equal length. It is about 200 miles from the Norwegian coast at Bergen to 
the Shetland Islands; 200 miles from the Shetlands, or 225 from the Heb- 
rides, to the Faroes; and 275 miles thence to the nearest coast of Iceland, — 
reckoning all in straight lines, shorter than any ship could actually follow. 

If his viking boat and viking crew could span those stretches of sea 
unguided, what hindered his crossing the little further space whose tem- 
pests had no terrors for this wild sea-king? In that unpossessed- land, 
could he find it, he might be free to riot at his will (but one cannot help 
thinking there was more in the man than that !) ; and if he could open 
to his people a new country, what wealth and power might not come with 
it to him, for the humbling of his rivals at the court of Norway. 

So Red Erik sailed away to the west in 984, and two years later re- 
turned to Iceland and reported that he had met first a far-extending icy 
coast, along whose front he had sailed southward until he could turn to the 
west and then northward, thus rounding its narrow southern extremity (Cape 
Farewell); and there he had found a habitable region, which he called Green- 
land, in order, as he said, to attract settlers by a pleasant name. Thus this 
wicked old Norseman was the first of American "real-estate boomers." 

Attracted by his story, a band of adventurers went back with him in 
986, and established a settlement near the site of the present Danish town 
Julianshaab, just inside the cape, on an inlet that they named Eriksfiord. 

Among these emigrants was one named Herjulf, whose son Bjarne 1 
was a merchant captain who owned his own ship, and was then absent in 
Norway. Returning to Iceland shortly after Erik's departure, he concluded 
at once to follow his father, and, with a willing crew and still loaded ship, 
set sail for the west. But incessant bad weather drove them they knew not 
whither during many days. At last the wind fell, the sun shone out, and 
they saw r land ; but its appearance did not agree with the description of 
Greenland, and knowing they were too far south, Bjarne turned north, and 
kept on, occasionally sighting the coast, until finally he reached Eriksfiord 
in safety. No one knows what headlands he looked upon ; but if the Ice- 
landic versified chronicles called sagas may be believed, — and the wisest stu- 
dents of history put faith in them, — he was the first European to see America 
of whom we have definite knowledge. 

1 This is not a Norse, but an Irish name, familiar to us as Barney- 



EARLY VOYAGES AND EXPLORATIONS 47 

Several years passed by, however, before any one tried to profit by this 
accident and seek the lands that had been seen southward. Then Leif, the 
eldest son of old Red Erik, resolved to do so. He had talked with Bjarne 
and his men until he knew all the details of their story, and then he bought 
the same good old ship, and enlisted a crew ot thirty-five men. This 
happened in Norway, where Leif then was, and it is said by some that the 
king aided and authorized the expedition. At any rate, after a public fare- 
well they sailed away, and seem to have gone straight across the ocean ; 
but whether they did this, or sailed by way of Iceland and Greenland, they 
easily found the unknown coasts Bjarne had described, and landed in Hellu- 
land, Markland, and Vinland, in the last of which they built huts and spent 
the winter of the year iooo. 

The identification of these places has caused much discussion. That 
" Helluland " was Newfoundland and " Markland " Nova Scotia seems toler- 
ably certain ; but historians are not agreed as to where that winter was 
spent in "Vinland," so called (meaning " Wineland ") because a German 
member of the crew gathered grapes there, from which wine could be made. 
When, in 1602, Gosnold discovered a fruitful island south of Cape Cod, he 
named it Martha's Vineyard, believing that he had found the place. 

When Leif reached Greenland again, the next spring, every one was 
vastly interested in his discoveries, and emigrants from Greenland, Iceland, 
and even from Europe went out to colonize the new lands ; but the attempts, 
though spasmodically continued for a long time, seem never to have been 
really successful, so that no undisputed trace of the presence of these sea- wan- 
derers on the mainland of North America is known to exist. That the)' knew 
the coast fairly well from Disco Island (70 N. lat.) southward to Virginia, 
is generally believed ; but where Leif Erikson spent that first winter, or where 
the Vinland settlement of subsequent times was, is thus far a matter of con- 
jecture. Some students of the sagas place it in New York harbor, others 
in Narragansett or Buzzard's bay, near Boston, or in Nova Scotia. For- 
merly the general belief was that Newport, R. I., or the shore above there, 
was surely the site; but this was based, first, on the supposed European in- 
scriptions on a rock in the Somerset River, at Dighton, just above Fall 
River, which were in reality only Indian markings ; and, second, upon 
the " old round tower" at Newport, which few persons now believe was 
built prior to the coming of the English colonists with Roger Williams. 
The late Professor E. H. Horsford believed that he had found the site of 
the principal Norse settlement of the tenth century, called Norumbega, at 
Watertown, on the Charles River, a few miles west of Boston ; and he made 
an argument from old maps, etc., to support his assertion that the ancient 



4 8 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



river-walls, etc., there were really the remains of a town ; but historians 
generally do not attach any importance to Professor Horsford's theory. 

Perhaps we shall never know where this " Vinland " was that Leif dis- 
covered, and where the queenly Gudrid dwelt and her son Schnorr — the first 
white child in America — was born ; nor is it of much consequence that we 
should, for the settlements were few and transitory. That they existed, how- 
ever, and that the shores of Canada and New England were occasionally 
visited from the tenth to the fourteenth centuries by Norsemen, cannot be 
gainsaid. That the Greenlanders did not all migrate to the warmer, well- 
timbered, and fruitful region in the south was probably due to the fact that 
it was so remote from their kindred, and so open to at- 
tack by the native red men, whom they called skrellings. 
Over the long but slow history of these American 
settlements of the Northmen we need not linger. 
Although Vinland seems to have been abandoned within 
a few decades, the Greenland settlements were main- 
tained. A republican government was organized; Christi- 
anity was introduced, and remains of their stone churches 
and Augustinian monasteries have been identified. By 
the end of the fifteenth century, however, these colonies 
had completely disappeared, worn out in the hopeless 
strug-o-le against climate and the savage Eskimos, but 
exterminated, at last, perhaps, by the Black Death — 
for the great plague which almost depopulated Europe 
in the fourteenth century seems to have reached even 
the desolate shores of Greenland, and to have consumed the last of 
these remote people, causing them to be utterly forgotten. 

A more definite account of pre-Columbian North America than that of 
the sagas and other traditions of the Vinlanders, and one accepted as true 
by Mr. Major of the English Hakluyt Society and other competent geo- 
graphical critics, is that of the voyages and reports of the brothers Nicolo 
and Antonio Zeno. These men belonged to a family distinguished in 
Venice ; and toward the close of the fourteenth century they separately 
or together made many voyages in the North Atlantic, going far beyond 
any previous navigators of which they knew. They wrote letters home 
containing an account of these, but little publication was given to them, and 
they were forgotten until the revival of interest in geography following the 
early discoveries of Columbus. The documents possessed by the Zeno 
family were then made the basis of a pamphlet by a grand-nephew reciting 
what his ancestor had done, long before the time of Columbus. The most 




A VIKING GALLEY. 



EARLY VOYAGES AND EXPLORATIONS 49 

interesting thing in it is an account of how, about 1390, Nicolo Zeno fitted 
out a ship at the Faroes, went over to Greenland and there learned of an 
island which was called Estotiland, and which we know as Newfoundland. 
Not very far away to the southwest of it, he says, was the country of Drogeo, 
which fishermen whom he saw had visited. They claimed to have "dis- 
covered" none of these places, but spoke of them as formerly well known, 
although then little frequented by Europeans. 

As to Drogeo, — which he speaks of as if it were the mainland, — that 
was still occasionally resorted to for fishing ; and he relates the adventures 
of a white man who had been captured by the mainland savages a few 
years previously, and adopted by them on account of his knowledge of 
how to fish with a net, and to do other useful thing's. Such a course 
would be very characteristic of the aborigines of eastern North America, 
as we have since learned to know ; and it is also natural that he should 
have been fought for by rival chiefs, as Zeno says happened to this man, 
who, by capture and exchange, or of his own motion, traveled about and 
saw much of the people of this "country" Drogeo. At any rate, the 
information given by Zeno tallies remarkably well with the truth about 
primitive North America and its inhabitants. " They have no kind of 
metal," reported this wandering refugee, who finally drifted back to the 
coast, and was able to make his escape to a fishing-boat. Now the one 
really remarkable and distinctive fact about the North Americans was just 
this, — that with a considerable advance in other directions, they had never 
learned to fuse and forge or otherwise utilize iron or other metals, save a 
little metallic copper and silver in the Great Lakes region. But listen to 
the rest of his brief report : 

They live by hunting, and carry lances of wood sharpened at the point. They have bows, 
the strings of which are made of beasts' skins. They are very fierce, and have deadly fights 
amongst each other, and eat one another's flesh [as was true, to a limited ceremonial extent, after 
battles]. They have chieftains and certain laws among themselves, but differing in the different 
tribes. The farther you go southwestward, however, the more refinement you meet with, because 
the climate is more temperate, and, accordingly, there [/. e., in Mexico] they have cities and tem- 
ples dedicated to their idols, in which they sacrifice men and afterwards eat them. In those 
parts they have some knowledge of gold and silver. 

Now, whether all this was the observation of a single rude sailor, or, as 
is more likely, summarizes what Zeno was able to learn from all sources at 
his command regarding the new western mainland and its people, it is cor- 
rect and forcible. Had young Nicolo the editor, a century afterward, tried 
to invent something of the kind, he would surely have made his invention 
marvelous, for that was an age of fable and bombast. On the contrary, 
4 



50 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

this is a simple and accurate statement of what we now know were the facts. 
Nor did he have any means of knowing anything more of the case than 
his family archives revealed, since he wrote and published this account 
of his uncle's voyages only a few years after the first return of Columbus, 
and before any writer had visited the northern American coasts, or had 
learned the habits of the natives. I can but believe, therefore, that the 
report was made in good faith, and records simply what the Zeni did and 
saw and heard ; and that these bold Venetian navigators knew more about 
North America, at least, before the end of the fourteenth century than Colum- 
bus had learned by the end of the fifteenth. 

I have run ahead of my story, but I wanted to show how little impres- 
sion these northern investigations and occupation of a new continent had 
made upon the Mediterranean "world," which seems rarely to have heard 
of them, much less to have profited by the information, for more than four 
hundred years, in spite of the fact that there was constant communication 
between the Normans and British, at least, and the Mediterranean peoples. 

Let us now go back to those southern countries and see what they had 
been doing toward maritime exploration during these thousand years and 
more when the Scandinavians were so busy in the north. It was principally 
perfecting the knowledge of the world their fathers knew. From the very 
first men had tried to make maps, and succeeded fairly well for small spaces ; 
but to make a map of the whole world was a task that defied human know- 
ledge for many centuries. After Aristotle's time all men of education under- 
stood that the world was a sphere; and about 150 B. c. Hipparchus, bor- 
rowing an idea from the Babylonians, taught the Greeks that the way to 
place their towns and mountains and rivers and the outlines of the coast 
correctly upon a model of the world, was to determine their position by 
observations of the heavenly bodies. Thus the ideas of latitude and longi- 
tude originated. He could not apply his method practically very far, be- 
cause there were few or no accurate astronomical observations away Irom a 
few cities in Egypt and Greece ; but two hundred and fifty years later 
Ptolemy, a learned mathematician of Alexandria, gathered all the facts ob- 
tainable, and made an attempt which bore a rude .resemblance to the truth 
and served as the best and almost the only account of the world for several 
hundred years. Ptolemy flourished about 150 a. u. His book describes 
Asia as far east as the Malayan peninsula, Africa south to Zanzibar and 
the Gulf of Guinea, and shows a knowledge of Europe as far north as the 
Shetland Islands (Ultima Thule) and Denmark ; the original work seems 
to have contained no maps, but these were added to it about 500 a. d. by 
another mathematician named AeathodEemon. It is called the Almaeest. 



EARLY VOYAGES AND EXPLORATION'S 



51 



Nothing of value was added to this during the long stagnant period of 
the world called the middle ages, when the love of learning declined and 
men fell back into the old traditions, even to the extent of being taught by 
their priests that it was a sin to believe that the world was round. In those 
times the Arabs of Bagdad nourished knowledge more than any one else, 
but even they did little for geography. Finally the people of Europe began 
to wake up and look at things for themselves, instead of tamely accepting 
whatever the Pope of Rome or somebody else told them, and going and 




'#J 



t,%'W 



" Off, thou Norseland Terror, clouding 
Hellas with the jealous wraith 








^&™ : -J 



Which, the gods of old enshrouding, 
Froze their hearts, the poet saith ! ' 



coming as he directed, regardless of whether it was for their interest to do 
so or not. One of the first and one of the most important influences of this 
revival in a desire for learning and the means for larger activity among men 
was the sudden extension of navigation ; and this could not have come about, 
nor amounted to much, had the mariner's compass not been invented. 

Nothing is more obscure than the history of this instrument. The Chi- 
nese have certainly known, from a remote antiquity, that a magnetized 
needle, permitted to move freely, would turn north and south ; but they seem 
to have profited as little by it as by so many other useful things that, long 
afterward, in the hands of the more energetic men of the West, contributed 
so largely to the progress of civilization. They were accustomed to poise a 
sliver of magnetized steel upon a bit of cork and set it afloat in a bowl ot 
water. One end was marked, but this, with characteristic Chinese perver- 



52 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

sity, was the one pointing toward the south, not toward the north, as with 
us. This rude and simple arrangement is still in use among the Koreans — 
or was until recently. With such a contrivance and little, it any, knowledge 
of the variation of the needle, the Chinese of a thousand years ago -made 
longer voyages than they have done in more modern times, trading not only 
with India, but sailing regularly as early at least as the ninth century 
to the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. 

There is no direct evidence, but it seems incontestable, that it was from 
these eastern mariners that the Arabs received the compass, and gradu- 
ally brought it into use in their home waters, where it became well known 
to the crusaders and other sea-goingr travelers of the middle ages. Little 
reliance could be placed upon it, however, until the sixteenth century, 
when the need for something trustworthy for long voyages made men turn 
their attention to the study and betterment of it. 

Toward the end of the fourteenth century, as I have said, Europe was 
beginning to recover from the terrible visitations of the plague, and to 
wake from its lethargy and to look abroad ; and various influences were at 
work to promote exploration by sea and land — and what a grand field for 
study there was ! 

At this time nearly all the commerce of Europe, mainly in Italian hands, 
was with India and China. The overland route was long, perilous, and 
expensive, and that across the Arabian Gulf hardly less so. At best, such 
traffic was slow and limited, and the first need of the reviving world was the 
discovery of some straighter and quicker road to the East. In this quest 
Portugal came forward under the brilliant leadership of Dom Henrique 
(Prince Henry), styled "the Navigator," who was the younger son of King 
Joao (or John) I, and half an Englishman, since his mother was Philippa 
of Lancaster. It was Prince Henry's ambition to extend geographical dis- 
covery and improve seamanship, and he enlisted the help of the best navi- 
gators obtainable, regardless of nationality. In order to observe the 
heavens to better advantage, and also to study the tides and other nautical 
phenomena, he established an observatory on the bleak headland of Cape 
Sagres, where he willingly spent a large portion of his time for the sake of 
science. Navigation was sorely in need of such help. Except that they 
had rude compasses, of whose laws of variation, etc., they were ignorant, 
the seamen of that day were little, if any, better equipped than were those 
who sailed the " ships of Tarshish " a thousand years before that. Astrono- 
mers had supplied them with rough tables of the declination of the sun, 
pole-star, etc., by which, with the help of a cross-staff, — a simple instru- 
ment for ascertaining angles, — they might make a guess at the latitude. 



EARLY VOYAGES AND EXPLORATIONS 53 

Longitude was found only by observations of eclipses of the moon, and 
noting the difference between the time when it was due at home, according 
to the almanac, and the local time of its actual coming ; but at sea the 
" observations " were little better than guessing. 

Chart-making was an important branch of study at Sagres. So few 
and rare were sea-maps then that one was never seen in England until 
1489. To the collection of information in this direction, and the im- 
provement of nautical methods, Prince Henry and his aids applied them- 
selves most diligently ; but he died before much had been accomplished. 
Nautical studies went on, however, under the next king, John II, for whom 
Martin of Bohemia, the foremost astronomer of his time, devised a form of 
the astrolabe for use on shipboard, increasing accuracy in finding latitude. 

It was with no better instruments than these (and sand-glasses in place 
of chronometers) as guides over chartless and unsounded seas that the way 
was found to India and to America, and the globe was circumnavigated ; 
and that the same thing might be done again is shown by the fact that only 
last year (1897) a vessel, which had barely escaped destruction in a storm 
and lost all her instruments in the mid-Pacific, was brought safely into San 
Francisco by observation of the stars and "dead-reckoning" alone. 

But Prince Henry (for I have run ahead of my story again) Avas not 
content to study and teach on land alone. He was fired with the ardor of 
discovery and conquest likely to augment Portugal's wealth and influence in 
the East. Expedition after expedition was sent southward, and in 1435 
Henry's ships finally passed Cape Bojador. Great was the wonder and 
rejoicing thereat, for it had always been taught by the monks that this cape 
was the end of the earth; but it was not until 1462 that the Cape Verd 
Islands and Sierra Leone were reached. Prince Henry had been dead 
since 1460, but the influence of his wise and untiring enthusiasm and 
work lived on, and inspired the king and people of Portugal to renewed 
efforts at solving that riddle of Africa that perhaps the Egyptian sphinx 
was meant to typify. By 1469 trade had been opened with the Gold 
Coast, and a few years later the mouth of the Congo was found. 

These advances showed that there was nothing unnatural or fearful 
in the southern latitudes, as sailors had been taught to believe from time 
immemorial, — a superstitious dread which the old chart-makers long sus- 
tained by their habit of filling the empty sea-spaces on their maps with 
fearsome and wondrous monsters, — and therefore, in i486, King John II 
sent Bartholomew Dias in two sail-boats — pinnaces of fifty tons each — 
with orders to go as far as he could ; and this bold captain, passing the last 
known headland of the Guinea coast, sailed on and on, tracing the West 



54 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



African coast, and landing here and there to examine the swampy shores, 
to o-et fresh water, and to hoist the castellated banner of Portugal in token 
of possession before the wondering eyes of naked negroes. At length he 
was blown and buffeted for days and days in heavy storms, and at their 
close found himself far to the eastward of his former longitude, whereupon 
he fought his way on and sighted land which he rightly determined must 
be the southern extremity of Africa. This was in 1487. Returning to 
Lisbon toward Christmas of that year, he reported his experiences, and 




PORTION OF A FIFTEENTH CENTURY SEA-CHART, BY TOSCANELLI. 

Copied by permission of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., from Justin Winsor's " Narrative and Critical History of America ' 



dwelling especially upon the rough time he had had in the south, proposed 
to style the point ol the continent Cape of all the Storms ; but King John, 
foreseeing great things to follow for his country, said, "No; we will call 
it the Cape of Good Hope " ; and so it remains to this day — but all the 
storms remain about it, too ! 

Now for some years previous to this time the monarchs of western 
Europe were much exercised over rumors of the existence somewhere in 
the Orient of an all-powerful and generally marvelous potentate styled 
(by them) Prester John, and reputed to be a conqueror of Asiatic, or per- 
haps African, infidels who later had become, cut off from Christendom. The 
whole affair was a myth, probably arising from an indistinct knowledge 
of Abyssinia, whose negus afterward borrowed the title ; but before this 
was realized popes and various "Catholic majesties" had sent embassies 
in search of Prester John's court, some of which incidentally gained valu- 



EARLY VOYAGES AND EXPLORATIONS 55 

able information. Among the latter was Pedro Covilho, an emissary of 
Portugal, who, having failed to find Prester John in western India or Per- 
sia, made his way back to Egypt and Abyssinia, whence he sent home in 
i486 or 1487 a report of progress that told John II some surprising news 
of the advancement of the Arabs of that part of the world in the sci- 
ences, and especially in those belonging to geography and navigation. 

Covilho's messenger was a Portuguese Jew, Rabbi Joseph of Lamego,. 
who carried voluminous letters, one of which showed that Arabic mariners 
were then familiar with the whole length of the east coast of Africa, in- 
cluding Madagascar, and were perfectly well aware where it terminated at 
the south, and that there was no obstacle to passing around to the western 
side of the continent ; and just at this interesting juncture Dias came sailing 
back in his pinnace to say that it was all true, for he had seen it. 

Thus the sea-road was open to India and Cathay, and Portugal was 
eager to take advantage of it. She was then one of the leading powers of 
Europe, and the foremost one in colonial and commercial enterprise, striv- 
ing to wrest from Genoa and Venice the supremacy in trade that they had 
so long enjoyed. Nevertheless almost ten years elapsed before the next 
expedition was sent southward to confirm Portugal's possessions, and es- 
tablish commerce with the Orient. John II had died, and Emmanuel the 
Fortunate reigned in his stead — a reign that has been called the heroic 
period of the nation's history; and it must not be forgotten that "Little 
Portugal" was then so mighty that a year or so previously (May 4, 1493) 
the Pope (Alexander VI) had issued a bull in which he had divided, with 
intended equality, all undiscovered parts of the earth between Spain and 
Portugal, the former being given everything to the west, while to Portugal 
were reserved all future rights east of a certain north-and-south line. 

The line of separation designated was the meridian of no variation of 
the compass-needle. The existence of such a line had been discovered 
by the same Christopher Columbus who was to thrill the world a few 
years later ; but he did not know, what only experience developed, that this 
meridian was changeable, swinging many degrees east and then return- 
ing west in the course of two or three centuries. At that time the line 
seemed fixed some three hundred miles west of the Azores, and philoso- 
phers accounted for it later by a theory that it lay in the middle of the 
Atlantic because there it was subject to an equality of attraction toward 
both continents which held it steady. This was not true, but it was better 
than the less learned but more popular explanation of the magnetism of the 
compass — namely, that it was "an effluvium from the root of the tail of 
the Little Bear." A year later, however (June 7, 1494). the treaty of Tor- 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 




DRAWN BY HENRY B. 5N£LL 



THE SEA-ROAD TO INDIA AND CATHAY." 



clesillas, between Spain and Portugal, declared that the line of demarcation 
should be the meridian 370 leagues west of the Cape Verd Islands, or as 
nearly as possible in the center of the Atlantic. The supposition that 
there might be valuable lands within, that is, east of, that limit, inspired 
several of Portugal's subsequent searchers. 

In 1497 King Emmanuel's expedition was ready to sail — the largest 
and best equipped, probably, that had ever been sent out by any govern- 
ment, and its commander was Vasco da Gama, a young naval officer of 
renown. His fleet consisted of four vessels, — small caravels, of course, one 
of which was commanded by Dias, — and left the Tagus, after ceremonious 
farewells, in July. Da Gama stopped at various places, but reached and 
safely rounded the stormy cape in November. He had with him the infor- 
mation (and some say an Arabic map) sent home by Covilho, but his business 
was not to verify this, but to reach India and establish new Portuguese pos- 
sessions. Why, then, did he not strike straight across from Cape Agulhas, 
as East Indiamen have done ever since ? For the good reason that he had 
no guide, no means of finding his way across the southern ocean, where all 
the stars were strange ; for sun observations for latitude were then unknown 
to European navigators, and rarely used on land. Instead of this, he was 
obliged to turn northward and skirt the coast for a thousand miles, stopping 
here and there, until he had passed far enough north of the equator to bring 
above the horizon the familiar home stars, for which he had " tables." 

At last, from the Arab port of Melindi, near Mombasa, he turned east 



EARLY VOYAGES AND EXPLORATIONS 57 

and sailed straight away to India, where he anchored before Calient, then 
the most important port of southern India, on May 20. Returning the 
next year with ships richly laden, he was received with public rejoicings and 
given high honors ; and he greatly astonished his friends of the navy by 
telling them that the Arabs used the compass, sea-charts, quadrants, and 
" had divers maritime mysteries not short of the Portugals." 

Da Gama lived many years, and sailed often to India and China after 
that ; but chiefly on political expeditions, in which he disgraced his other- 
wise great name by inexcusable rapine and cruelty. 

Meanwhile some exploration had been done toward the far north, as we 
shall see in the next chapter ; and so the fifteenth century ended, with 
Europe understood as far as Nova Zembla, Africa circumnavigated, and the 
coasts of India, Malaya, southern China, and the larger Malayan islands 
fairly familiar to geographers. This is much, and yet it leaves unmen- 
tioned the greatest fact of all — the work of that grand, sad character, Chris- 
topher Columbus, upon whose grave near Seville has been written : 

HE GAVE A NEW WORLD TO SPAIN. 






m, DEL'OflME. 

THE FLYING DUTCHMAN. 



' There, beyond ihe Cape of Storms, " Men catch glimpses of the sail, 

Where the breaker's voice of thunder Ages old, and rent and hoary, 

Roars when ships are rent asunder, Of that quaint old ship of story, 

Through a fog of ghostly forms And cry, ' Vanderdecken, hail ! ' ' 









Si^a^rSpS 




THE ROCK IN THE SEA. 



CHAPTER IV 

(Cofitinued) 



EARLY VOYAGES AND EXPLORATIONS 




PART II FROM COLUMBUS TO COOK 

jHY to Spain? It is an "oft-told tale," and the merest re- 
minder is all that is needed here. Columbus was a young 
seafaring man, born at Genoa about 1434, and ambitious 
to become a master of his profession, and especially to 
acquire great wealth. He traveled to Venice, Barcelona, 
and other cities where learning was to be gained, and became thoroughly 
acquainted with all the astronomical and geographical science of the time, 
and especially proficient in the art of cartography. Attracted by the naval 
activity in Portugal under that indefatigable Prince Henry, Columbus went 
to Lisbon about 1454, and endeavored to find a leading place in the sea- 
work that country was doing. But Portugal's eyes were so blinded by the 
glamour of Africa and the East Indies that she had no time to follow the 
gaze of this young and ardent Genoese captain whose eyes were turned 
steadily toward the west, where, more and more insistently, he urged that 
a sea-track, straight as a line of latitude marked on a globe, lay open to 
the Indies and the coasts of Cathay. To prove this true would be not only 
a glorious exploit for any man, but an achievement of untold advantage to 
the nation under whose flag- he sailed. 

Just how this conviction arose in the mind of Columbus we do not know. 
It was probably first a purely scientific conclusion from the facts of astron- 
omy and geography that he had learned, encouraged by romantic traditions 
of western " Isles of the Blest." A few scientific men agreed with him, but the 
great influence of the Church of Rome condemned such notions as opposed 
to the Bible and revealed religion ; and the mass of the people, ignorant and 
superstitious, looked upon them as foolish, and laughed at Columbus as a 



6o 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



dreamer or worse. Between 
his danger of arrest and death 
as a heretic on the one hand, 
and imprisonment as a lunatic 
on the other, the man of 
science in those days had a 
hard time. Columbus there- 
fore sought far and wide for 
evidence to support his the- 
ories and render them accept- 
able. How much he learned 
— what, in the way of facts, 
he actually knew — it is hard 
to say. Having fallen in love 
with a Portuguese lady of 
good family, he married and 
apparently settled in Portugal 
as his home, but continued 
his voyaging. He knew the 
Mediterranean from end to 
end. He made several voy- 
ages to the Guinea coast, and 
dwelt for a time at El Mina, 
then newly founded, satisfy- 
ing himself of the foolishness 
of the common assertion that 
men could not live " under 
the equinoctial " — that is, 
near the equator. He went 
north to and beyond Iceland, 
and acquainted himself with 
those waters, and thus con- 
vinced himself that the ocean 
was everywhere navigable, 
and subject to uniform laws 
of tides, weather, etc. His 
mind was cleared more and more of the mists of fable and superstition, and 
all he learned brought into clearer view the truth of science as a guide. He 
devoted more and more attention to improving the means of finding the 
true position of a vessel at sea, and of keeping a true course by the com- 




PORTRAIT-STATUE OF COLUMBUS IX MADRID. 



EARLY VOYAGES AND EXPLORATIONS 6 1 

pass, which he continually studied ; and it was he who first discovered that 
some leagues west of the Azores lay the meridian of no variation — a me- 
ridian that has now moved eastward until it lies near London. Everywhere 
he interrogated explorers, discussed navigation with experienced captains, 
and sought the aid of new maps, improved instruments, and advancing 
knowledge ; and yet mixed with all seem to have been a childlike vanity, 
credulity, and superstition, hard to reconcile with his courage and acumen. 

How much actual evidence he had of the existence of lands below the 
Atlantic horizon unknown to his countrymen can never probably be satisfac- 
torily answered. The latest critical biographer of Columbus, the great 
Spanish liberal statesman Emilio Castelar, considers that he was led to his 
discoveries by little, if anything, outside of pure reasoning upon the rotun- 
dity of the earth and other scientific data, and dismisses as fables or things 
unknown to Columbus all the Scandinavian discoveries of Greenland and 
the rest, and other stories of men who, it is said, had already seen the 
transatlantic world he sought. We are told that he learned of woods and 
canes like none that grew in Africa, of strange carvings, and even of the 
dead bodies of men, resembling those of the far East, being cast upon the 
shores of Africa and the islands near it, especially the Azores. It seems 
impossible that when he was in Iceland and the other northern regions, a 
man of his inquiring mind should not have learned something of Greenland 
and the continental shores beyond, especially when one remembers that for 
centuries previous Catholic missionaries had been reporting progress to 
Rome from that distant but real field of labor. It is quite likely that some 
knowledge of these facts, which must have been'known to the professors of 
the universities of Pavia and Barcelona, where Columbus studied, and to 
other intelligent men of Italy and Spain with 
whom he came in contact, had caused Colum- 
bus to go to the north, for we know of no other 
errand. Perhaps he had heard of the Zeni. 

Especially to be noted is the allegation that 
Columbus possessed information as to the ex- 
perience of a Frenchman named Jean Cousin, 
— a Dieppe sea-captain, who, it is asserted, 
discovered South America and the Amazon 
River in 1488. This claim has been lately 
reviewed ("Fortnightly Review," January, 1894) 

by Captain Gambier of the British navy, and he decides that it is good ; 
and that it was because Cousin's first mate was one of the Pincons that 
that firm was willing to assist Columbus, as a good investment. 




62 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

Whatever he knew or did not know, and whatever may have been the 
difficulties in his way, Columbus spent many weary years in fruitless efforts 
to interest some government in his schemes. How finally he won Spain to 
his support, secured the aid of the Pincons, merchant princes of Palos,-and 
sailed from that port on August 3, 1492, — and it was Friday! — are details 
that need not be repeated. Equally well remembered are the story of his 
daring onward voyage, and of the glorious outcome when, on October 1 2, 
land was seen, — a new world found. 

Expedition after expedition followed one another from Spain to the 
newly found possessions, some conducted by the earlier companions of 
Columbus, and all filled with adventurers who cared for nothing but plun- 
der. One ot these, led by an officer named Ojeda, reached the coast ot 
Guiana in 1499, and coasted along the north shore of South America 
as far, probably, as Maracaibo. This was the first of the Spanish ex- 
peditions actually to set foot upon the mainland ; and it would not have 
been mentioned out of its place (since Cabot, as we shall presently see, had 
landed on the continent nearly two years before) but for the fact that one 
of its members was that Amerigo Vespucci whose fortune it was to have his 
name attached to the continent. 

Amerigo Vespucci (or Vespusze, as Columbus spells it) was a Florentine 
engaged in the shipping business who was attracted to Spain by the 
maritime activity there, and became interested in equipping the second 
flotilla of Columbus and in other similar enterprises for the government. 
The wealth and influence thus gained and his general abilities led him to 
join that expedition of Ojecla in 1499, and during the next four years 
he made three other voyages to Brazil, in which the bay of Rio Janeiro 
was entered (New Year's day, 1501), and an exploration southward ex- 
tended probably as far as South Georgia (Islands). Upon his return from 
this last voyage, in 1505, he publicly asserted that he had visited, 
in 1497, the coast of what is now the southern United States. It has 
lately been shown by Spanish records, however, that at that date he was 
busy in the government dockyards in Spain ; therefore his assertion was 
false. It served, however, to deceive a forgetful public, and to procure for 
its author the coveted glory of being the first "discoverer" of the " New 
World," as he first called it (though there is no evidence that he understood 
it to be a continent), and hence the one entitled to give it his name. 

This bold claim achieved its purpose. The oldest known map of the 
whole world, dated A. d. 1500, said to have been drawn by the great artist 
Leonardo da Vinci, from data furnished by Juan de la Cosa, and hence 
known to historians as the " De la Cosa Mappimundi " (it is preserved 



EARLY VOYAGES AND EXPLORATIONS 



63 



in Madrid), bears the name "America" across die new countries for 
the first known time; but Juan de la Cosa was with Ojeda and Ves- 
pucci on the expedition of 1499, and doubtless Vespucci managed the nam- 
ing. In 1507, only a year after the death of Columbus, there appeared in 
France the " Cosmographie Introductio" of WaldseemUller (also called 
Hylacomylus), which was regarded as the most complete and authentic 




THE "SANTA MARIA" — THE FLAGSHIP OF COLUMBUS' FLEET. 

geography of its time; and here the name of America was boldly written 
across "a fourth part of the world, since Amerigo found it." The name 
(a Latin derivative) was novel, easy to pronounce, no one knew or cared as 
to the right of it, and so it stood. 

A few lines more as to the Spanish and Portuguese navigators in these 
waters, and then we shall have done with them for the present. In 1499 
one of the Pincons sailed from Spain straight to the Amazon, as has 
been mentioned, avoiding the West Indies, as if he knew precisely whither 



64 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

he was bound, and reached there in January of 1500. A few months 
later a large Portuguese expedition under Pedro Cabral, starting for India 
around the cape, was blown so far to the west that it ran against Brazil. 
Everybody was hitting upon untrodden shores in those inspiring days,' and 
Cabral promptly took possession for his king. As this shore was outside 
(east of) the hemisphere assigned by the Pope to the Spanish, the Portu- 
guese kept it for 389 years, in spite of Pincon's priority. In 1508 Ojeda 
obtained the government of the northern coast of South America, and 
Nicuesa of the region north of the Gulf of Darien; and with the arrival of 
these adventurers in New Spain began that era of rapine and horror which 
will forever disgrace the Spanish name. The rapacious governors and 
their wild crews quarreled and fought with each other as well as with the 
downtrodden natives, and exploration was carried on by piracy. A 
learned man, Martin Enciso, went out to take command in 15 10, but he 
was deposed by his soldiers the next year and sent back to Europe, where 
he made the first book printed in Spanish (15 19) describing America. His 
place was taken by Vasco Nunez Balboa, who entered upon a career of 
exploration and peaceful conquest, generally conciliating the Indians, who 
told him of another sea not far to the west, and on September 25, 15 13, 
guided him to the summit of a hill near Panama, whence he, first of Euro- 
peans, gazed upon the Pacific. Who can imagine the emotions of such a 
sight ! — for it told the Spaniards that this land was not the eastern margin 
of Asia, but a new continent. Balboa made his way through the forests 
as rapidly as he could, and on the 29th, wading into the surf, banner in 
hand, took possession of the waters in the name of the King of Castile. 

Balboa at once began preparations to utilize his discovery, for the Indians 
had also excited him and his men by tales of a country to the south 
abounding in gold. He cut and shaped timbers for small ships, and had 
with enormous trouble and labor transported these across the isthmus, 
intending there to build a fleet and sail southward, when he was super- 
seded in command by a new governor, Pedrarias. This man, a jealous and 
brutal adventurer, on a false pretext of disloyalty arrested and beheaded 
Balboa before he could get away — an act that "was one of the greatest 
calamities that could have happened to South America at that time ; for 
... a humane and judicious man would have been the conqueror of Peru, 
instead of the cruel and ignorant Pizarro." The frisfhtful destruction of 
the country of the Incas soon followed, while Cortes overran Mexico and 
De Soto invaded Florida. 

It has doubtless by this time been in the mind of more than one reader 
to ask whether, while the men of the Mediterranean region were making 



EARLY VOYAGES AND EXPLORATIONS 



65 




A PEACEFUL DAY ON THE SPANISH MAIN. 



these notable searchings for new shores, the men of northern Europe were 
standing idle. What were the mariners of France and the Netherlands, 
Scandinavia and Great Britain, doing? Well, all were doing something, 
and some of them produced results of novel seafaring that were well worth 
the getting, but these were principally in far northern waters, as we shall 
read in the next chapter. It was not until the opening of the sixteenth cen- 
tury that in England, at least, that era of far voyaging began which signal- 
ized the Elizabethan age on the sea as much as the poets and dramatists and 
statesmen-writers of her court distinguished it on land. 

It was, however, earlier than that — in the reign of Henry VII — that Eng- 
land's story of discovery begins, and the first names are those of two Italians 
known in English as John and Sebastian Cabot, father and son, who 
were then residents of Bristol. The Bristol folk were at that time the 
foremost mariners of England, who often went to Iceland and all the nearer 
isles; and they firmly believed in certain traditional islands and coasts far 
away to the west, which seem to have been composed of no better material 
than the airy structures of the sunset clouds and the romantic tales of 
Phenician sailors and other travelers in the dawn of history. As long ago 
as when Strabo wrote, a century before the birth of Christ, these things were 
of old belief, and he recounts the delights then told of the "Isles of the 



66 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



Blest," west of the farthest verge of Africa. When the Canary Islands be- 
came known as facts, the myth moved farther west; and when acquaintance 
with the Azores proved them to be only natural earth with a fair share of 
its ills, as well as of its good, people insisted that still other islands must lie 
farther away, where the Elysian Fields basked in perpetual summer and men 
were eternally happy. The old idea charms us even yet when we sing 
"Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood stand dressed in living green." 
But no such hierher renderings occurred to the men of the earlier time. 
They believed firmly in the actual existence of these ever-fortunate islands 
under the sunset horizon of the Atlantic, and (in the north) called them the 




VOYAGING TO THE ISLES OF THE BLEST. 



Isles of St. Brandon, the " green isle of Brazil " (the root of which word 
seems to express the idea of redness, such as appears in low sunset clouds), 
the Isle of the Seven Cities or Antillia, and by other names. Ferdinand 
Columbus, a son of Christopher, says in his " History" that his father fully 
expected to meet, "before he came to India, a very convenient island or con- 
tinent from which he might pursue with more advantage his main design." 
This does not prove that Columbus put any faith in the reality of these old 
notions, nor does he seem to be responsible for the fact that the name An- 
tilles was immediately attached to the archipelago he actually did meet with, 
and The Brazils to a part of the mainland next found. These names had 
been appearing on conjectural maps of the Atlantic side of the earth for 



EARLY VOYAGES AND EXPLORATIONS 6 J 

many years before his time ; and that they represented realities to many 
hard-headed merchants and sailors of his time is shown conclusively by the 
fact that between 1480 and 1487 at least two carefully planned naval expedi- 
tions had gone from Bristol, England, in search of them. How much vague 
memories of early Norse and Irish findings in the west may have given 
weight in Bristol to these old myths is hard to say ; but at any rate it was there 
the search for this pot of gold at the end of the rainbow bore unexpected 
and momentous results, but all were surprised at the distance involved. 

About 1496 John Cabot, then a resident of Bristol, proposed to the king 
an expedition in search of a new route to the Indies by sailing due west 
from Ireland. Henry VII was excited by the news of Columbus' southerly 
findings, and was eager to secure something of the kind for England. Never- 
theless, although the king granted privileges that might prove profitable in 
case of success, he seems to have furnished no money. Cabot, therefore, 
sailed away, privately equipped, in a small caravel named Matthew, carry- 
ing only eighteen persons. 

Never was a voyage of discovery, the consequences of which were so 
far-reaching, entered upon with less pomp or flourish of trumpets. So little 
note of it was made at the time that the very name of John Cabot narrowly 
escaped being lost altogether, and the record of his work came very near 
being replaced by a confused account of the doings of his son Sebastian ; 
for it was not until certain letters had been found — and that within a very 
few years — in the contemporary archives of Spain and other European coun- 
tries, that we were able to give any sure account of the matter. 

It is now plain that John Cabot, in the Matthew, leaving Bristol early in 
May, 1497, and having passed Ireland, shaped his course toward the north, 
then turned to the west and proceeded for many days until he came to 
land, where he disembarked on June 24, and planted an English flag. 

There seems to be no doubt that this was the mainland of North 
America, and the general opinion has prevailed that his landfall was the 
extremity of Cape Breton. Cabot stayed some days, but how far he traced 
the coast, and whether he learned of Newfoundland or Prince Edward 
Island, are matters of conjecture. At any rate, he soon turned homeward, 
and arrived in Bristol probably on August 6. 

We can imagine with what eagerness his story was listened to, as he 
told of the fair, temperate, well-wooded land, its people and animals and 
fruitfulness, that he had seen. But the thing that impressed the Bristol 
men most was the report of the enormous abundance of codfish there. 
This was something these canny men could see without any illusions, and 
possess themselves of regardless of papal bulls ; and they at once aban- 



68 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

doned their northern fishing-grounds and began to resort to the Banks of 
Newfoundland, whither they were quickly followed by large annual fleets 
of Norman, Breton, Spanish, and Portuguese fishermen. John Cabot 
intended to go again the next year and make his way onward to Japan, as 
he believed he could do, for, like the others, he thought what he had found 
was only a remote eastern part of Asia ; and in 1498 he actually did sail west- 
ward from Bristol with five ships, victualed for a year. None of these ships 
ever returned, and no evidence exists that they ever reached their goal ; 
and with them John Cabot, to whom England owed her early suprem- 
acy in North America, disappears from view. 

Sebastian Cabot was a son of John Cabot, and a skilful map-maker. 
Whether he went with his father on the first voyage is disputed ;• there 
seems no direct evidence that he did so. That he did not go on the second 
voyage is plain, for he had a long subsequent career, of which accurate 
knowledge is a late acquisition ; here it is only necessary to add that by his 
statements to Peter Martyr and others he allowed the erroneous impres- 
sion to pass into history, if he did not directly authorize the lie, that it was 
he, and not his father, who discovered America and the fishing-grounds. 

Now that the way across the Atlantic was learned, chivalrous sailors 
hurried to add what they could to the map. Corte-Real, a Portuguese 
of rank, struck northwest, and hit upon and named Labrador as early 
as 1500. The next voyage of prominence introduces the French as com- 
petitors, Francis I sending the Florentine Verrazano, a typical sea-rover 
of the period, who had already been to Brazil and the East Indies and 
was finally hanged as a pirate, to find out what he could about northern 
America. He steered west from the Madeira Islands in January, 1524, 
found land near Cape Fear (North Carolina), and claimed to have traced 
the coast as far north as Nova Scotia, besides entering a large bay (either 
New York or Narragansett). His whole story, however, rests on certain 
letters and maps the authenticity of which has been hotly disputed ; and 
at any rate little, if anything, came of this voyage. 

It was far different with the next one, however, — that one sent from 
France in 1534, under the command of Jacques Cartier, who sailed from 
St. Malo in two tiny vessels to Newfoundland, and learned of the mouth 
of the St. Lawrence River. Then, like all the other captains, none of 
whom could stay over winter in America, because their vessels were too 
small to store provisions, and because they were beset by fears, not only 
of visible savages, but of invisible hobgoblins, he returned to France. The 
next year found him back again, however, this time steering his vessels up 
the St. Lawrence to "Hochelaga" (Montreal), and later carrying home an 



EARLY VOYAGES AND EXPLORATIONS 69 

account that led to so immediate a movement on the part of France that 
Canada was the scene of the earliest colonization of the New World, properly 
speaking, for the Spanish settlements in the south were thus far nothing 
but military stations. France, indeed, dreamed of obtaining the whole of 
North America for herself, and attempted soon after to colonize Florida 
and the Carolinas; but these attempts failed, and she was able to hold only 
the valley of the St. Lawrence and the shore of its gulf. These things 
happened later, however, and for many years the Atlantic coast of North 
America was left unclaimed by any one, while the English and Dutch were 
busy in the far north, the Spanish were rioting in the tropics, and the Por- 
tuguese turned their attention to the southern and eastern quarters of the 
globe. It is one of the most striking curiosities of the history of the devel- 
opment of civilization on the globe, following the stagnation of the middle 
ages and the desolation of the plague-ridden thirteenth century, that the 
most remote, unprofitable, unhealthy regions were so fiercely struggled for, 
while the best parts of the New World were left until the last. 

Having found Brazil, both Spaniards and Portuguese proceeded to trace 
the continent southward, hoping to find a practicable way to Peru around it. 
Several experienced navigators worked southward, the best known of whom 
is Juan Diaz de Solis, who entered the La Plata River and was killed there . 
by the Indians in 15 16. Columbus had not been a moment too soon to be 
first. Nevertheless it was left to a stranger in those waters, the indomi- 
table Magellan (Fernao de Magalhaes), to reap the reward of success. The 
Pope and all the bishops still declared that the earth was flat; but so little 
was this now believed, even by themselves, that Magellan, who had just 
quitted the service of Portugal, dared to propose to "his most Catholic 
majesty " the King of Spain to sail west instead of east to the Moluccas, 
just as though the earth were globular and might be circumnavigated ; and 
the king not only dared to listen, but approved of the proposition, which 
seemed entirely practicable if South America could be passed. That was 
the problem Magellan set himself to solve. Should he succeed, could the 
Moluccas be reached by sailing westward, then they would fall into that 
half of the earth given by the Pope to Spain, and Portugal's present claim 
to them would be overthrown. Thus the experiment was well worth mak- 
ing in behalf of politics as well as knowledge, and Magellan was furnished 
with five ships, carrying two hundred and thirty-seven men. The Trinidad 
was the admiral's ship ; but the San Vittoria was destined for immortality- 
He struck boldly for the Southwest, not crossing the trough of the Atlantic as Columbus had 
done, but passing down the length of it, hrs aim being to find some cleft or passage in the 
American continent through which he might sail into the Great South Sea. For seventy days he was 
5* 



"JO THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

becalmed under the line. He then lost sight of the North Star, but courageously held on toward 
the " pole antarktike." He nearly foundered in a storm, " which did not abate till the three fires 
called St. Helen, St. Nicholas, and St. Clare appeared playing in the rigging of the ships. In 
a new land, to which he gave the name Patagoni, he found giants of " good corporature." . . . 
His perseverance and resolution were at last rewarded by the discovery of the Strait named by 
him San Vittoria, in affectionate honor of his ship ; but which, with a worthy sentiment, other 
sailors soon changed to the Straits of Magellan. On November 25, 1520, after a year and a 
quarter of struggling, he issued forth from its western portals, and entered the Great South Sea, 
shedding tears of joy, as Pigafetta, an eye-witness, relates, when he recognized its infinite ex- 
panse. . . . Admiring its illimitable but placid surface, and exulting in the meditation of its 
secret perils soon to be tried, he courteously imposed upon it the name it is forever to bear ■ — 
the Pacific Ocean. . . . 

And now the great sailor, having burst through the barrier of the American continent, steered for 
the northwest, attempting to regain the equator. For three months and twenty days he sailed on 
the Pacific, and never saw inhabited land. He was compelled by famine to strip off the pieces of 
skin and leather wherewith his rigging was here and there bound, to soak them in the sea, and 
then soften them with warm water, so as to make a wretched food ; to eat the sweepings of the ship 
and other loathsome matter; to drink water that had become putrid by keeping ; and yet he 
resolutely held on his course, though his men were dying daily. As is quaintly observed, " their 
gums grew over their teeth, and so they could not eat." [This was scurvy, the dread of all 
mariners in those times and long afterward.] He estimated that he sailed over this unfathom- 
able sea not less than 12,000 miles. 

In the whole history of human undertakings [declares Dr: John W. Draper, from whose strik- 
ing sketch of this achievement in his " Intellectual Development of Europe " I am quoting] 
— in the whole history of human undertakings there is nothing that exceeds, if, indeed, there is 
anything that equals, this voyage of Magellan's. That of Columbus dwindles away in compari- 
son. It is a display of superhuman courage, superhuman perseverance — a display of resolution 
not to be diverted from its purpose by any motive or any suffering. . . . 

This unparalleled resolution met its reward at last. Magellan reached a group of islands 
north of the equator — the Ladrones. In a few days more he became aware that his labors 
had been successful. He met with adventurers from Sumatra. But, though he had thus 
grandly accomplished his object, it was not given to him to complete the circumnavigation of 
the globe. At an island called Zebu, or Mutan, he was killed, either, as has been variously re- 
lated, in a mutiny of his men, or, as they declared, in a conflict with the savages, or insidiously 
by poison. . . . Hardly was he gone when his crew learned that they were actually in the 
vicinity of the Moluccas [having previously wandered too far north, and discovered the Philip- 
pines], and that the object of their voyage was accomplished. . . . 

And now they prepared to bring the news of their success back to Spain. Magellan's 
lieutenant, Sebastian d'Elanco, directed his course for the Cape of Good Hope, again encoun- 
tering the most fearful hardships. Out of his slender crew he lost 21 men. He doubled the 
Cape at last; and on September 7, 1522, in the port of St. Lucar, near Seville, under his orders, 
the good ship Vittoiia came safely to an anchor. She had accomplished the greatest achieve- 
ment in the history of the human race. She had circumnavigated the earth. 

The immediate result of this voyage was to impress Spain's sovereignty 
upon the East Indies; but a vaster and more far-reaching consequence was 
the influence it exerted, by its proof that the world was really a globe, to free 
men's minds from blind belief in and guidance by a tradition, which had 



EARLY VOYAGES AND EXPLORATIONS 



7* 



taught that the earth was a flat plain surrounded by water, — an error 
sanctioned by St. Augustine and other influential teachers. Magellan im- 
pressed a name upon the greatest of the oceans, and has his own name 
gloriously emblazoned upon both the map of the earth and the map of the 
sky in the southern hemisphere ; but his greatest title to honor, after all, is 
that he struck dogma the hardest blow it ever received. 

The sixteenth century seems to have been, outside of the Arctic regions, 
an era of surveying rather than of exploration by sea, yet some notable 




SEA-SURF AT SANTO DOMINGO. 



work was done in the East, where all nations now entered as competitors 
in the trade, seizing upon every island or mainland shore that they could, 
and holding their possessions as long as possible. Even the English en- 
tered heartily into this rivalry, the great East India Company having been 
founded in 1599. With its trading we have nothing to do, but must note 
that it extended knowledge of Oceanica considerably, and added greatly 
to Europe's information as to India, the Malayan peninsula and larger 
islands, China, and Japan. The Spanish and Portuguese found them- 
selves so busy in defending that to which they already laid claim that they 



72 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

had little time to search for new lands ; and this sort of enterprise fell 
mainly to the Dutch, who, now that the Netherlands were at last free from 
the long and cruel tyranny of Spain, were energetically making up for lost 
time. Their captain, Van Noort, went out by way of the Straits of Ma- 
gellan to the Philippines, and got back to Rotterdam between 1598 and 
1 60 1. Another fleet made the same voyage fifteen years later; and in 1616 
Cape Horn was rounded by Willem Cornells Schouten, who gave the name 
of his home village, Hoorn, to that desolate terminus of South America. 

For many years geographers had held belief in a vast "southern conti- 
nent," — Terra Azistralis, — and most of the islands found in the South 
Pacific were accidental results of some attempt to reach it. New Guinea 
had been sighted a century before, and perhaps Australia also, of which 
several navigators got glimpses here and there early in the sixteenth cen- 
tury, satisfying them that it also was a great island. It was not until this 
century was half gone, however, that the map of that quarter of the " South 
Sea " was filled out with any accuracy; and this was due to the skill and labor 
of an eminent Dutch voyager, Abel Janszen Tasman, who was despatched 
southward with two ships by the colonial government at Batavia, where the 
Dutch had already gained political ascendancy. 

"This voyage," we are told, "proved to be the most important to geog- 
raphy that had been undertaken since the first circumnavigation of the 
globe." Tasman sailed from Batavia in the yacht Hecmskirk, on the 14th 
of August, 1642, and from Mauritius on the 8th of October. On Novem- 
ber 24 high land was sighted in 42 30' S., which was named Van Diemen's 
Land (now Tasmania), and, after landing there, sail was again made, and 
New Zealand (at first called Staatenland) was discovered on the 13th of 
December. Tasman communicated with the natives and anchored in what 
he called Murderers' Bay, because several men were massacred there by the 
natives. Thence he took an irregular course east and north, until he arrived 
at the Friendly Isles of Cook. In April, 1643, he was off the north coast of 
New Guinea, having meanwhile sailed around New Britain and New Ireland 
(now New Mecklenburg), and on June 15 he returned to Batavia. 

The contribution to sea-knowledge of the remaining voyages in this 
century were mainly in the direction of a better understanding of winds, 
currents, ice movements, tides, and an improvement in the methods of 
building, rigging, and navigating vessels intended for long voyages. Map- 
making received a great impetus and was especially cultivated by the 
Dutch, among whom Mercator became famous by inventing the useful pro- 
jection that bears his name and is still most commonly used. Neverthe- 
less, the improvement, especially in instruments of navigation, was slow. 



EARLY VOYAGES AND EXPLORATIONS J 3 

The astrolabe generally gave place to the cross-staff; and this to a better 
device called the back-staff, of which an improved form, invented by John 
Davis, remained long in use. This was called the Davis quadrant ; and with 
it "the observer stood with his back to the sun, and, looking; through the 
sights, brought the shadow of a pin into coincidence with the horizon." 
Many variations of this instrument were made, until, in the middle of 
the next century, it was superseded by the sextant. Thus before the close 
of the seventeenth century, astronomers and navigators had learned how to 
determine latitude fairly accurately, and the sailor had prepared for him 
a variety of tables of stars, almanacs, and other mathematical guides. The 
determination of longitude was yet difficult, however, owing largely to 
the imperfection of timepieces ; and it was not until the last year of the 
century, signalized by the first recorded sea-voyage made purely for sci- 
entific purposes, that much advance was made. This voyage, lasting two 
years (1699- 1700), was undertaken by the eminent English astronomer 
Edmund Halley for the express purpose of obtaining information neces- 
sary to the improvement of the compass and methods of ascertaining the 
position of a ship at sea, was productive of results of the greatest service, 
and placed the science of navigation upon a sure footing. It was fol- 
lowed early in the next century by the establishment in England of the 
Longitude Board, a scientific commission charged with the duty of deter- 
mining longitudes and studying navigation. From this board came the 
" Nautical Almanac," which first appeared in 1767, but similar almanacs are 
now published annually by the governments of almost all maritime powers, 
and the editorship is esteemed in the United States one of the most honored 
positions in the naval service. These books contain ephemerides, or tables 
of positions for each day of that year of all the heavenly bodies, "predic- 
tions of astronomical phenomena, and the angular distances of the moon 
from the sun, planets, and fixed stars," all referred to some stated meridian. 

With such an almanac, an improved compass, and one of Newton's new 
sextants as a means of quick and accurate observation of sun and moon and 
stars, the navigator had little need to doubt as to where he was ; and maps 
began to show a corresponding improvement in accuracy. 

The early part of this century, as we shall see later, was the era of the 
buccaneers and of many wild sea-rovers whose far-wandering barks, in 
search of adventure, picked up much information at the expense of human 
lives and hard-earned property. The foremost of these was Dampier, who 
seems to have gone almost everywhere a ship could go, and who found 
out many new things, which he had the power of telling well, as to Aus- 
tralasia ; and the strait between New Guinea and New Britain, which he 



74 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



discovered, is named after him. Many a commander was now cruising in 
those waters, however, under English and Dutch flags mainly, finding new 
lands and pillaging old ones — such as Roggewein, Anson, Byron, Wallis, 




"BUCCANEERS AND MANY WILD SEA-ROVERS." 

Carteret, Bougainville, and others ; and such important islands as Easter, 
Tahiti, Charlotte, and Gloucester groups, Pitcairn, and others, were found 
during the first half of this century. But now the English were to redeem 
their good name by sending out a government expedition, or series of ex- 
peditions, whose object was scientific discovery and the humane study of the 



EARLY VOYAGES AND EXPLORATIONS 75 

men and resources on the other side of the world, instead of forced trade or 
bloody rapine. These were the three expeditions commanded by Captain 
James Cook, one of the most capable officers in the British navy. 

The first voyage was made in 1767 for the purpose of carrying a party 
of astronomers and naturalists to Tahiti to observe there a transit of Venus, 
after which a survey was made of the then almost unknown coasts of New 
Zealand and Eastern Australia. The second voyage was to explore the 
Antarctic regions, whither the French had preceded him, as we shall see in 
the next chapter ; and we need only say here that Cook finally disposed of 
the tradition of a vast terra australis — at any rate a habitable one. It is 
to his third voyage, then, that he principally owes his fame. 

This was undertaken in pursuance of the ruling idea of his day, that 
a sea-route might be discovered north of the American continent, which 
would vastly shorten the trip from Europe to China and the Spice Islands. 
Others were seeking it directly by way of Baffin's Bay, and Cook was sent 
to attack the problem from the Pacific side. He was given command of 
his old ship Resolution and a new one, Discovery, outfitted in the best pos- 
sible manner, and especially guarded, in the matter of provisions, against 
scurvy — that dread of the old-fashioned seamen, in respect to which Cook 
himself had introduced such new and valuable preventives as would alone 
have entitled his name to grateful remembrance. He was commanded to 
revisit, on his way out, the South Pacific Islands ; and departed from Eng- 
land in June, 1776, steering by way of the Cape of Good Hope, and reach- 
ing the archipelagoes in the spring of 1777, where he cruised for nearly a 
year. In January, 1778, he sailed north from the Friendly Islands, and a 
few days later hit upon a large, inhabited, unknown group of islands, whose 
principal one was called Hawaii by the people, but which he named Sand- 
wich Islands, in honor of an English earl who had taken great interest 
in his plans. Here he spent some delightful days, and then bore away to 
the w r est coast of America, which the English still claimed under Drake's 
name of New Albion, and which he struck near Puget Sound. Thence 
he went slowly along the coast northward until he found and penetrated 
the deep bay since called Cook's Inlet. His hope that this might prove a 
sort of northern Straits of Magellan was quickly disappointed, and he went 
on into and through Bering Sea and Strait until he was stopped by the ice 
on the north shore of Alaska, at a point still called Icy Cape. Then he 
turned back, surveying both shores of the strait, and again made his way to 
the Sandwich Islands, where, in an unfortunate quarrel with the natives, he 
was killed. The Hawaiians have always said that this was the act of a 
ruffian among them, and that the chiefs and the best of the people never 



j6 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

wished nor intended any harm to their visitors ; and this is probably true. 
His executive officer took the ships back to England in October, 1780. 

The voyages of this able and intelligent commander bore fruit in many 
ways. One was the colonization of Australia, Tasmania, and New Zea- 
land by the English, which began in 1788. Another was the voyage of 
Vancouver to the west coast of America in 1792, which intercepted the sur- 
veys of the Spaniards there, under Quadra and others, and enforced Eng- 
lish possession of all the country between the Californian settlements of the 
Spaniards and the Russian posts in Alaska, though he curiously failed to 
find either Puget Sound or the Columbia River. A third direct result, and 
from some points of view the most important one, was the opening of a great 
number of the South Sea Islands to Christian missionaries. 

By this time there had arisen in the New World which these voy- 
agers had first stumbled upon, and then searched for, and afterward scru- 
tinized so carefully, a new, composite nation, which somehow forgot that all 
their broad and fertile land had been given away centuries before by an old 
gentleman in Rome to his friends the Spaniards, and acted as though they 
thought it belonged to themselves ; and by and by thi? thriving nation 
hoisted a starry flag of its own, and proclaimed itself the United States of 
America. Then, not to be behind European powers, whose navigators 
were enriching libraries with magnificent chronicles of scientific studies in 
sea-science, such as those of the French "Voyage of the Astrolabe" the 
Russian narratives of Krusenstern and Kotzebue, and the English explora- 
tions of Beechey (who was accompanied by Charles Darwin), the United 
States sent to the Pacific a well-equipped expedition under Lieutenant (after- 
ward Admiral) Charles Wilkes. This was gone from 1838 to 1845, sur- 
veyed the west coast of South America, wandered about Oceanica, and did 
its best to penetrate the icy limits of the Antarctic zone. The results were 
six magnificent folio volumes, containing not only the narrative of the cruise, 
but contributions to science by James D. Dana, Horatio Hale, John Cassin, 
and other men of the last generation great in American science. 




BES5«5£*ag^e^gfc '%$£* i *g2&^* 



CHAPTER V 

SECRJETS WON FROM THE FROZEN NORTH 




S soon as the sea-routes between Europe and the far East 
were learned, and the American coasts had been mapped, 
the region within the Arctic circle became the most attrac- 
tive field for nautical discovery. All this earlier Arctic ex- 
ploration, however, was not, as it has lately become, a system 
of scientific research, but was simply a series of attempts to ojaen new 
roads for commerce to follow. It occurred to every navigator that as a 
sea-way had been gained past the southern end of America, so one around 
its northern border might be disclosed ; and perhaps, also, a ship-route 
along the northern coast of Siberia. Either of these would be far shorter 
than to go to " Cathay " around either Cape Horn or Cape of Good Hope, 
and would enable the English and other northerners to avoid their enemies, 
the Spanish and Portuguese, who commanded the southern waters. 

The first Arctic voyage of exploration, properly speaking, was that 
of Willoughby and Chancellor, who in 1553 penetrated the seas north 
of Scandinavia, where they became separated. Willoughby and his men 
tried to winter on the coast of Russian Lapland, but all died of scurvy. 

Chancellor, however, pushed on into the White Sea, reached a monastery 
on the coast, and thence made his way to Moscow, where he was well 
received, and thus opened a trade route of incalculable advantage to both 
England and Russia. It led at once to the organization of the Muscovy 
Company, and began a commerce now regularly carried on in steam vessels 
to Archangel, which in 1897 was connected with Moscow by railroad. 

By 15S0 several other commanders had tried to improve on this perform- 
ance, but none got past the Kara Sea, and the next important effort was 
headed toward that " Northwest Passage," which for more than three cen- 
turies was the lodestone of Arctic students and voyagers. It was in charge 
of Martin Frobisher, later one of England's most conspicuous admirals, 
who afterward made a larger expedition in which he learned many facts 



78 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

about the Labrador coast and Hudson Strait. Another English seaman, 
and a more scientific one, John Davis, made three remarkable voyages, 
between 1585 and 1589, and increased the map by a careful delineation 
of both coasts of the strait still called after him. 

Shortly afterward Dutch merchants had sent three expeditions north- 
ward under command of William Barentz to search for a northeast passage, 
the third and most important of which sailed in 1596 and found it impossible 
to penetrate the ice east of Nova Zembla (which had been seen first by 
Burrough in 1556, who had been shown the way by Russian fishermen), 
but discovered Bear Island and Spitzbergen. The crew of Barentz's vessel 
spent the winter of 1596-97 at Ice Haven, Nova Zembla — the first success- 
fully to face a winter in the Arctic zone. When the next spring came they 
made their way to Lapland and homeward in boats, but Barentz died on 
the road. This voyage was highly important in opening to the Netherlands 
the whale and seal fisheries of that region which has ever since been known 
as Barentz's Sea, but it discouraged the hopes of a " northeast passage." 
In 1 87 1 Barentz's winter quarters at Ice Haven were found undisturbed, 
after a lapse of 274 years, and in 1875 part of the journal kept by this brave 
mariner was recovered. Almost every year about this time saw English, 
Dutch, and Danish ships going north, each adding some new fact to 
geography and the knowledge of polar waters and ice. One of them, in 
1607, was commanded by Henry Hudson, who searched the North Atlantic, 
found Jan Mayen, and pointed the way to the Spitzbergen whale fisheries; 
yet he had hardly more than a sail-boat, and a crew of only eleven men. 

The following year this intrepid man tried to go to China north of 
Asia, but failed as Barentz had done, and returned "void of hope of a 
northeast passage." Nevertheless, he tried it again a year later in the 
service of Amsterdam merchants, but his men were obstreperous, and, 
yielding to his own inclination as well as to theirs, he turned west to find 
that " Northwest Passage " in which everybody then believed because they 
hoped, and because of the difficulty of getting so great a fact as the real 
North American continent proved to be accepted by the popular imagina- 
tion, which was used to small things in geography. Very willingly, 
then, Hudson's little ship, the Half Moon, was turned toward the southwest; 
and it found something better than it sought, for the Hudson River and 
the site of the future metropolis of the New World were added to the map. 

Hudson's success in this voyage led to his immediate engagement by a 
company of English merchants and speculators, who were willing to risk 
additional money in searching for a northwest passage if he would lead. 

In 1610, therefore, Hudson took command of a new ship, the Discovcrie, 



SECRETS WON FROM THE FROZEN NORTH 



79 



and sailing in her to Baffin's Bay, found the great opening of Hudson Strait, 
and with high hope that his goal was now in view followed it westward into 
Hudson Bay. Here he coasted south to what we term James Bay, and, 
after a comfortable winter, resumed his examination of the west coast, 
whereupon the majority of his men mutinied, set Hudson and several sick 
men adrift in a rowboat, and turned back. Most of the mutineers died, but 
the vessel was finally taken back to London, where the murderers were 
promptly questioned and nearly as promptly hanged. 

The story of another remarkable voyage closes the story of this early 
attempt at the problem which, two hundred and fifty years afterward, was to 
be solved only by proof of its uselessness. In 1 6 1 6 another Discovery — 
a caravel of only fifty-five tons — went north from England in charge of 
William Baffin. " On the 30th of May he had reached Davis' farthest 
point, Sanderson's Hope, in 72 41' N., . . . and reached, 1st July, an open 
sea, the ' North Water ' of the whalers of to-day. Passing Capes York, 
Atholl and Parry, he yet pushed northward, and on 5th July attained his 
farthest point within sight of Cape Alexander. 
His latitude, about yy 45' N., remained un- 
equaled in that sea for two hundred and thirty- 
six years." Arctic success depends on good luck. 
The next century (1700 to 1800) was a period 
of active polar research in the Old World. The 
Russians completed their knowledge of their 
Arctic coasts, Popoff reaching East Cape in 

1 7 1 1 , and bringing back an 
account not only of various 
islands, but also of a conti- 
nental shore eastward. 




FANTASTIC ICEBERGS IN HUDSON STRAIT. 



8o 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



It was this report that caused Peter the Great to set on foot a costly 
scheme of research upon the northeastern coasts of Siberia, which was 
placed in the hands of Vitus Bering, a Dane, in his navy, but accomplished 
nothing of any value ; and it was not until i 740 that Bering finally crossed 
over in a blundering sort of way and made a brief examination of the coast 
of Alaska, where his ship was finally wrecked, and he died of discourage- 
ment and chagrin. He saw neither the sea nor the strait that bears his 
name, was not the first to reach the American continent, and never learned 
whether or not it was connected with Siberia. Nevertheless his voyage had 
fruitful results, for it led to vast fisheries and fur-gatherings, and the writings 
of his naturalist, Steller, had and still have great scientific importance. 




A WALRUS BREEDING-GROUND, BERING STRAIT. 

By this time the whaling and allied marine industries, and the work ot 
such excellent explorers as the Dutchman Martens, had made mariners 
thoroughly acquainted with the North Atlantic from Nova Zembla to 
Greenland, and a vast advance had been effected in the knowledge of 
navigation amid the ice, and in the building and equipment of ships and the 
proper methods of provisioning and clothing and treating crews in order to 
maintain health and comfort as well as mere safety. These well-fitted and 
daringly managed whalers had at the beginning of the nineteenth century 
begun to penetrate far into the waters west of Greenland, in spite of a 
very curious fact, which would make anybody but a British whaleman 
pause — namely, that there were no such waters. So their best maps and 
treatises said ! 

Two hundred years had now passed since Baffin's return from his 
wonderful voyage of 1616, and during all that time not a white man's keel 
had plowed the chilling solitudes he had left, except lately these venture- 



SECRETS WON FROM THE FROZEN NORTH Si 

some whalers, who did not frequent libraries. Consequently Baffin's work 
had first been forgotten and then disbelieved ; so that at last first-class 
maps were published which omitted Baffin's Bay altogether, and books 
were written, such as Barrows' "Arctic Voyages" (London, 1818), that 
denied the authenticity of his narrative. As the nineteenth century opened, 
however, England began to turn her attention to the renewal of polar 
studies. The Hudson's Bay Company's men were reaching the coast of 
their Territories here and there ; but otherwise the whole Arctic Ocean 
north of British America was unknown. 

To relieve herself of the shame of this Great Britain soon sent into that 
field a rapid succession of explorers, many of whom soon became famous. 
The very first of these, John Ross, despatched in 1818, confirmed fully the 
geography laid down by Baffin as far as Cape York, in spite of the learned 
book-makers, and reported a great number and variety of interesting 
facts; whereupon a much larger expedition was at once arranged and 
placed in command of a naval officer named William Edward Parry, who 
went out in 18 19 with orders to find the northwest passage, and who had 
in his staff such men as Sabine, Liddon, James Ross, Reid, Crozier, and 
similar material, all stimulated not only by naval and scientific pride, but by 
the offer by Parliament of a reward of $100,000 to him who should first 
discover the desired thoroughfare. 

This first voyage was a grand success. Forcing his way into Lancaster 
Sound in midsummer, Parry found that Ross's report that it was a land- 
locked bay was erroneous. As Greely tells it : 

The mirage-mountains of the previous year had vanished, and as Parry crowded sail west- 
ward, he opened a series of magnificent waterways hitherto unknown. The way lay through an 
archipelago (Parry), with North Devon, Cornwallis, Bathurst and Melville islands to the north, 
and Cockburn, Prince of Wales, and Banks islands to the south. Lancaster Sound, broken at 
its western end by Prince Regent Inlet, gave way to Barrow Strait, which broadened into 
Melville Sound, while yet farther to the west the encroaching land formed Banks Strait where- 
through these channels open into polar ocean. 

If you will look at the map you will see that this list comprehends 
pretty nearly everything south of Smith Sound. Many details of course 
were lacking, and these Parry was sent a second time to work out, but he 
added really little to geography by two seasons of hard work ; and a third 
voyage, begun in May, 1824, was still more unfortunate. These voyages, 
however, enabled Parry, who was one of the greatest of all Arctic students 
and navigators, to state that the western sides of all northerly and southerly 
bodies of water are always more encumbered with ice than the eastern 



82 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

sides ; and to make many most valuable improvements in ice navigation 
and equipment. His illustrated narratives remain among the most readable 
books of Arctic experience, and little has been added to their accounts of 
eastern Eskimo life and customs. 

Meanwhile (1819) another navy officer, who was ardent in the scientific 
branches of his profession, as well as distinguished in seamanship and naval 
warfare, and who had acquired Arctic experience under Buchan in the ill- 
starred expedition of 1818, was sent overland to cooperate with others in 
defining the mainland coast of America. This was Lieutenant John Frank- 
lin — a name destined to become the most famous of all among the ex- 
plorers of the frozen North. For several years he and his parties lived and 
traveled among the Eskimos, tracing the coast-line from a considerable 
distance east of the mouth of the Coppermine River westward almost to 
Point Barrow, Alaska, where they came within one hundred and forty-six 
miles of meeting Beechey's cooperative examination by sea from Bering's 
Strait ; and it was out of these trips that we got the valuable treatises 
upon the natural history of British America, published by his assistants, 
Hearne and Richardson. This ended in 1826. 

The next prominent expedition was that of Captain John Ross and his 
nephew James, afterward celebrated in Antarctic exploration ; and it turned 
out an exceedingly productive one. Meeting fortunate conditions in Lan- 
caster Sound he easily reached where the Fury had gone ashore, and re- 
filled his ship with a portion of the stores Parry had thoughtfully landed 
and made safe there — a provision which later kept this expedition from de- 
struction. »Then he pressed on beyond where Parry had gone, and added 
largely to the details of his map, but curiously failed to recognize Bellot 
Strait as a thoroughfare, and so unaccountably missed the thing he was 
in search of. Ross discovered Boothia Felix ; and during the three winters 
spent on its eastern shore, the younger Ross, by sledging, discovered 
Franklin Passage, Victoria Strait, and King William's Land, and largely 
explored their coasts; but his most important work, "giving imperishable 
renown to his name," as Greely declares, was the determination of the 
position of the north magnetic pole on the west coast of Boothia Felix. 

"The experiences, duration, and results of this voyage," writes Gen- 
eral A. W. Greely, " are among the most extraordinary on record. The 
party passed five years in the Arctic regions without fatality, save three 
(two from non-Arctic causes), discovered a new land, the northern extrem- 
ity of the continent of America, and made other extensive geographical 
discoveries. Its observations are probably the most valuable single set ever 
made within the Arctic circle." 



SECRETS WON FROM THE FROZEN NORTH 



83 




ESKIMOS IN SUMMER 
TENTS. 



During the third winter (1833) a rescuing party under Captain C. Back 
had gone from England overland in search of Ross ; and recruited by Hud- 
son's Bay Company men of experience had descended Fish (or Back's) 
River to its mouth, thus noting a new point on the map ; but it failed to 
reach Ross. By similar overland journeys from their trading-posts on 
Great Slave Lake and elsewhere, the Hudson's Bay Company's men, es- 
pecially Simpson, Dease, and Rae, connected various points of the coast, 
so that before 1850 it was known with substantial accuracy from Melville 
Peninsula to Bering Strait. In much the same way Russian sledge-travel- 
ers had traced the northern Asiatic coast by descending to the mouths of 
rivers ; but no ship had yet succeeded in passing Cape Chelyuskin, the 
northernmost point of Asia or any continental land. 

Then came a period of the keenest rivalry and richest results in the 
history of polar conquest, but also one of the greatest catastrophes. The 
expeditions of Lieutenant John Franklin in 18 18 and 18 19 were spoken of a 
moment ago. His services then and subsequently had been recognized by 
the British king, who, among other honors, had made Franklin a knight, 
and sent him to be governor of Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania), where he 
remained from 1836 to 1843, founded a prosperous colony, and was regarded 
as one of the wisest, kindest, and most upright men of his day. Upon his 
return to England Franklin was made commander of the most important 
expedition that had ever yet been fitted out to search for the Northwest 
Passage, and his reputation brought the best men as volunteers to his stan- 
dard. Having selected 134 officers and men, and made the best equipment 
possible, Captain Sir John Franklin sailed on May 19, 1845, m tne Erebus 
and Terror, Parry's old ships. On the 26th of July they were seen pro- 



84 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

ceeding prosperously up Baffin's Bay by a whaler, who reported them in due 
course, but neither ships or crews were heard of again for many years. 

Anxiety over the long silence at length aroused the people of England 
and the United States to begin a search for them which lasted through many 
years. It was fruitless as to its first object, — the rescue of Franklin or any 
survivors,— but it gradually cleared up the sad mystery, and it was the means 
of learning all, and more than all, that Franklin sought to ascertain. 

The search began by the despatch, early in 1848, of Sir James Ross in 
two ships, Investigator and Enterprise, which wintered near the northeast 
point of North Devon, and returned the following year with' no tidings, al- 
though they afforded the second officer, Lieutenant F. R. M'Clintock, an 
opportunity to acquire a knowledge of sledging, which he afterward used to 
advantage. This failure only aroused England to renewed efforts. 

Many ships were started out at once, and also parties overland, of which 
mention will be made later. The Herald and Plover, during 1848 and 1849, 
scanned the whole coast from Bering Sea to the mouth of the Mackenzie, and 
discovered Herald Island. Following them, in March, 1850, went the Enter- 
prise, under Collinson, and the Investigator, under M'Clure, via Bering 
Strait, while the Assistance and Resolute, with two steam tenders, under 
Captain Austin, went to renew the search by Barrow Strait, and two brigs, 
the Lady Franklin and Sophia, under a whaling captain named Penny, 
followed them. The eastern expeditions discovered Franklin's winter quar- 
ters of 1845-46 at Beechey Island, but no record of any kind indicating the 
direction taken by his ships. Admirable arrangements were made for 
passing the winter, and their combined sailing and sledging work added 
much to the map of that district, and to our knowledge of life in polar 
latitudes, but it learned nothing whatever of Franklin's fate. 

Meanwhile the expedition via Bering Sea had become separated in the 
Pacific, and M'Clure, in the Investigator, got so far ahead that he was able 
to pass through Bering Strait and work his way eastward north of British 
America, and through the narrow Prince of Wales Strait until he reached 
Princess Royal Islands, where he wintered. Here he was only thirty miles 
from Barrow Strait ; and when he had climbed a high hill and saw its ice 
gleaming in the distance, he had in reality discovered the Northwest 
Passage. Yet he was not the first, as we now know, for when the sur- 
vivors of Franklin's ships, in their attempt to escape, had reached Cape 
Herschel, they, too, saw this same passage they had been sent to find, but 
then, as now, it was closed by perpetual ice, so that although we now 
know the way, we can no more avail ourselves of it than could they, except 
by going south of King William's Land, through a strait of which they had 



"I'jl 



1 1 (' 



4 '11 i 




A FLOATING ICE-CASTLE OF THE FROZEN NORTH. 
' Out from the dark, mysterious North, Tingling with unforgotten dreams, 

With all its glamour, every night And every day flood-full of light." 



86 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

not yet learned. The next summer was spent in a fruitless struggle to get 
north along the western side of Banks (or Baring) Land, in which he suc- 
ceeded only far enough to get frozen in so firmly on the north shore of that 
great island that even the summer warmth did not release his ship. . He 
would have perished had it not been that musk-oxen were plentiful ; and 
by the spring of 1853, it was plain that the Investigator must be abandoned. 

The Enterprise meanwhile had followed M'Clure in the spring of 1851, 
and passed two years in searching every shore and passage she could find, 
while her men made sledge-journeys far and near, as M'Clure's men were 
doing, and once came within a few miles of Point Victory, where Frank- 
lin's remains would have been found. At last, in the spring of 1854, she 
succeeded in making her way back along the American coast, and returned 
to England, completing one of the most remarkable of Arctic voyages. 

During their absence the friends of Franklin had not been idle. The 
apparent sacrifice of this fine character aroused almost or quite as much in- 
terest in America as in England, and Yankee shipmasters knew the north as 
well as did the men of England and Scandinavia. Henry Grinnell, a prom- 
inent merchant in New York, furnished the money to fit out two ships, the 
Advance and Rescue, commanded by Lieutenants De Haven and Griffiths, 
of the United States navy. They assisted in the search about Beechey 
Island, then struck north and discovered Grinnell Land, after which they 
returned before the winter had closed in. With them was a young physi- 
cian and traveler, Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, who persuaded Mr. Grinnell to 
send him a^ain to the north, less to search for Franklin, whom he had 
despaired of, than to prosecute explorations in higher latitudes. In 1853, 
in command of the little brig Advance, manned principally by whaling men, 
he left New London, Conn., and made his way straight up to the head of 
Baffin's Bay, which narrows northward into Smith Sound, where, on the 
eastern, or Greenland, shore of its expansion, since called Kane Basin, he 
was stopped by ice and remained a prisoner until rescued in 1S55. 

Dr. Kane wrote the histories of these expeditions, and especially of the 
latter one, in books so charmingly expressed, and abounding in such novel 
information, that they were read like romances in every home in the land, 
and did more to fire the ardor for Arctic discovery which has ever since 
glowed in this country, than anything else that had been said or done. 
The most immediate result was that Dr. I. I. Hayes, who had been with 
Kane, took a ship to Smith Sound and spent the winter of 1860-61 there, 
but with little result. More came from the expeditions led by an enthu- 
siastic journalist of Cincinnati, Charles F. Hall, but before speaking of these, 
let us return to the English search for Franklin. 



SECRETS WON FROM THE FROZEN NORTH 87 

Undeterred by the failure of Austin and Penny, or the silence of Col- 
linson and M'Clure, the British government in 1852 despatched again the 
four vessels used by Austin, and added a fifth, the Assistance, and a store- 
ship, the North Star, to form a depot of supplies at Beechey Island. The 
old haphazard ways had given place to very systematic methods of advance 
and rescue; but steam was little employed as yet, because of the trouble and 
cost of supplying coal, although two small steam vessels, as tenders, accom- 
panied this, the largest and most bountifully equipped expedition that had 
yet started out. The fleet, under command of Sir Edward Belcher, pro- 
ceeded through Lancaster Sound, beyond which they scattered somewhat, 
and spent the first winter in extensive sledge-journeys, during which they 
discovered (by a message that M'Clure had left on Melville Island) where 
the Investigator was imprisoned, and rescued all its people in June, 1853. 

This great expedition learned nothing of Franklin, although it did learn 
much of other Arctic matters, and left the map substantially complete south 
and west of Jones Sound ; but its honors rested upon M'Clure, who, first of 
all recorded men, had really made the Northwest Passage by sailing and 
sledging around the northern end of America. The settlement of this long- 
discussed matter had proved it of no practical value; but the British Par- 
liament kept its word, and gave ,£10,000 (half of the promised reward) 
to the officers and crew of the Investigator, besides raising M'Clure to 
knighthood. An incident of this expedition is the fact that Kellett's aban- 
doned ship Resolute survived crushing long enough to drift out through 
Barrow Strait and Lancaster Sound and down into Davis Strait, where in 
September, 1855, she was found and towed home by an American whaler. 
As she was little injured, she was presented to the British government with 
the compliments of the United States, and a few years later, when she came 
to be broken up, a fine table was made from her oaken timbers, and returned 
as a present to Uncle Sam ; and it now stands in the private office of the 
President of the United States in the Executive Mansion at Washington. 

Two great facts had now been ascertained. One was that none of 
Franklin's men or ships survived. The other fact was, that although there 
was plenty of water north of the American continent, it was so obstructed by 
permanent ice that probably no vessel could ever make its way through from 
the Atlantic to the Pacific ; none has done so yet, despite the determined 
effort of the steam yacht Pandora in 1875, but ships from the east have 
reached points also reached by ships from the west. The everlasting ice 
sheet of the polar ocean, ever crowding down upon this northern coast and 
into the channels between the islands north of it, forms a barrier that will very 
rarely, if ever, pause or open long enough to let a vessel through, even south 



88 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

of King William and Victoria lands. The outflowing warm waters of the 
rivers or other influences may sometimes produce a narrow space compar- 
atively free from ice in summer along the shore of the continent and greater 
islands ; but everywhere off shore, and never at a great distance, begins a 
thick mass of perpetual ice, which, it is believed, extends across the pole like 
a cap, and reaches on the other side nearly to Petermannland. To this has 
been given the name of the Paleocrystic Sea, or sea of ancient ice, and 
nothing is known of it beyond the blue cliffs of its margin that confronts 
the explorer as he gazes abroad from the hills of the Parry Islands or Banks 
Land, or vainly seeks in some lone vessel north of Alaska or Siberia to 
penetrate its glassy front. 

So thoroughly were the islands of this archipelago explored, and so 
unpromising seems further study, that Arctic voyagers have long ceased to 
risk their ships there, and the story of Franklin's fate was finally learned 
by land travelers. As early as 1854 Dr. Rae and a party of Hudson's 
Bay Company's men had traveled over land and ice to King William's 
Land, proved it an island, and heard stories of the death by famine and cold 
of white men who could be no other than the Franklin crew, as was further 
shown by various relics which Dr. Rae obtained from the Eskimos. Dr. 
Rae claimed and received ,£10,000 of the reward offered by the British gov- 
ernment. The next year another party, going down the Great Fish River, 
recovered many other articles from Eskimos at the mouth of the river and 
on Montreal Island. It was evident even then that every one had perished 
in an attempt, nearly successful, to reach the mainland at the mouth of this 
river. Lady Franklin, however, despatched an expedition in the Fox, un- 
der the command of the experienced M'Clintock, which at last brought 
back, not her husband, but the satisfaction of knowing fully his fate. 

All along the west and south coast remains of articles belonging to the 
ships were found, and skeletons — two of them in a broken boat; and finally 
in a stone cairn a written record that briefly told the tale of disaster. 

In 1845-46 Franklin quartered at Beechey Island, on the southeast 
coast of North Devon, after having ascended Wellington Channel to lati- 
tude 77 , and returned west of Cornwallis Island, which was an exceed- 
ingly successful season's work. In the autumn of 1846 he had turned 
toward the south, but had been stopped by and frozen into the masses of 
ice that come ceaselessly down M'Clintock Channel and press upon King 
William's Land. Had he known King William's Land to be really an island 
he need not have exposed himself to this. During all the summer of 1847 
the ships remained firm in their icy bonds. Sir John Franklin died, and 
Captain Crazier took command. The spring of 1848 brought no hope, and 



SECRETS WON FROM THE FROZEN NORTH 89 

in April the ships were abandoned. The crews started southward alone 
the shore, dragging two boats (one of which was soon abandoned) and 
many sledges. The Eskimos said the men dropped down one at a time, 
from weakness and hunger ; but it is believed that many of them were killed 
by the savages for the sake of what few things they had with them — 
precious articles to those natives. It appears that one of the vessels must 



m 




k -\ 




WORKING THROUGH AN ICE-FLOE, IN TOW OF A BERG. 

have been crushed in the ice, and the other stranded on the shore of King 
William's Land, where it lay for years, forming a mine of wealth for the 
neighboring Eskimos. Some years later Lieutenant Schwatka and W. H. 
Gilder, traveling with Eskimo parties in the region near the mouth of the 
Great Fish River, found the graves of the last remnant of the party, and 
recovered still other relics of this dreadful calamity. Let me copy for you 
here the postscript, written by Crozier and Fitzjames, to the short record of 
their work. It is startlingly brief and impressive: 

April 25, 1848. H. M. ships Terror and Erebus were deserted on 22nd April, five leagues 
N. N. W. of this [Point Victory], having been beset since 12th September, 1846. The officers 



90 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

and crews, consisting of 105 souls under the command of Captain F. R. M. Crozier, landed here 
in lat. 69 37' 42" N., long. 98 41' W. Sir John Franklin died on the nth June, 1847 ; and 
the total loss by deaths in the expedition has been to this date 9 officers and 1 5 men. We start 
on to-morrow, 26th April, 1848, for Back's Fish River. 

It would be tedious to attempt to chronicle the almost yearly excursions 
into the north, but a few ought to be spoken of. One such has been al- 
luded to — that of Charles Hall, a Cincinnati journalist, — who enlisted the 
aid of the American Geographical Society, and then prepared himself 
by going upon a whaler and spending the winters of 1860-61 and 1861— 
1862 among the Eskimos near Cumberland Sound, where "he found the 
remains of a stone house built by Frobisher in 1578. Again, from 1864 to 
1S69 he was living with the wandering Eskimo north of Hudson's -Bay, 
preparing himself to undertake an expedition which may be said to be the 
first whose avowed object was to try to reach the North Pole. The United 
States government furnished him the steamer Polaris, and a small but 
efficient body of scientific assistants, one of whom was Emil Bessels. The 
Polaris passed through Smith Sound, and after completing the exploration 
of Kennedy Channel, and discovering that beyond its expansion into Hall 
Sound it continued straight northeastward, forming Robeson Channel, 
Hall stopped his ship and by sledge-journeys reached Cape Brevoort, above 
82 N., whence he could see the open polar sea. This was not only far 
beyond any previous northing, but his work added immensely to our 
knowledgre of both Grinnell Land and northwestern Greenland, and 
prepared the way for further successes. 

This sledge -journey was, however, too great a strain, for he had hardly 
returned to his ship when he sickened and died. The next season (1872) 
Dr. Bessels and Sergeant Mayer reached on foot 82 ° 09' N., a few miles 
farther than Hall. This accomplished, an attempt was made to return, but 
the steamer was soon inclosed in the pack, and drifted helplessly southward 
for two months, until off Northumberland Island, when a violent gale 
loosened the pack and nearly destroyed her. 

At length the danger became so great that on October 15th boats and provisions were put 
on the ice, on which nineteen of the crew had disembarked. Suddenly the ship broke away, and 
the party on the ice drifted slowly 195 days, and were picked up off the coast of Labrador, in 
53° 35' N., by a whaling steamer 1,300 miles from where they had parted with the Polaris. The 
party in the ship reached Littleton's Island, where they passed the winter, building two boats 
from the boards of the vessel, in which they set sail southwards in June, 1873. On the 23d of 
that month they were picked up by a Dundee whaler, and ultimately reached home. 

Only three years before that a very similar experience had happened 
to the smaller ship of a German expedition under Captain Koldewey, of 



SECRETS WON FROM THE FROZEN NORTH 9 I 

which the larger went up the east coast of Greenland to 75>>° N., 
where a grim headland was named Cape Bismarck. It is just south of the 
land sighted by Lambert in 1670. The little Hansa, however, was crushed 
in the ice near Scoresby Sound. The crew escaped to the floe, where they 
built a house of blocks of patent fuel, filled it with provisions, and trusted 
themselves to the o-reat Arctic current which carried them south, at the rate 
of about sixty-five miles a day at first, until finally, in June, 1870, it took 
them to the Moravian missions near Cape Farewell, more than twelve 
hundred miles from where they were wrecked. 

The seas and archipelagoes north of Europe were being questioned, 
all this time, as well as those north of America. The Norwegian fishermen 
had been familiar with Spitzbergen waters from long ago, but it was not 
until 1863 that the group was circumnavigated. The next year Captain 
Tobieson sailed around Northeast Land, and in 1870 Nova Zembla was cir- 
cumnavigated, and the mouth of the Obi reached. 

The men who did these feats were sealers or shark-fishers in small 
stanch Norwegian schooners, which flocked in Barentz Sea at this period, 
and they furnished invaluable material, as did the whalers and sealers of 
American and Scotch ports, for the ice-pilots and crews of the scientific 
expeditions which now began to go to the north : moreover many of the 
commanders were trained by amateur service in such vessels. It was thus 
Nordenskjold began his experiences in 1864. Among these earlier expedi- 
tions was an Austrian naval lieutenant, Julius von Payer, who became nota- 
ble, not only because he interested a new nation in Arctic research, but 
because of his discoveries. His first experience was with the German expe- 
dition to Greenland in 1869, and in 1871 he and another Austrian navy 
officer named VVeyprecht spent the summer in examining the edge of the 
ice between Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla. 

Their observations led them to project an expedition to try again at 
that place to penetrate eastward, and effect the Northeast Passage, which 
had been regarded as hopeless for the past hundred years. The idea of 
making an Austro-Hungarian expedition of it aroused great enthusiasm in 
that empire, and Payer and Weyprecht were furnished with the large 
steamer Tegethoff, equipped as well as possible, with Weyprecht in com- 
mand, while von Payer was to lead all sledge-parties. She reached the 
northern end of Nova Zembla in time to get into comfortable winter quar- 
ters, but instead of escaping in the spring was kept imprisoned in the ice, 
drifting steadily northward before the prevailing wind until, in October, 
land was approached, near which the ship again became a fixture for the 
winter of 1873-74. In March Payer began to make exploratory journeys, 



9 2 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 




A SUMMER SCENE OFF NOVA ZEMBLA 



and found that they had discovered a group of mountainous islands, 
separated by broad and deep channels, which he named Francis Joseph 
Land, in honor of the Emperor of Austria- Hungary. 

By this time summer was approaching, when it was plain that the 
Tcgethoff must be abandoned, and an attempt made to get home afoot. On 
the 24th of May three boats were placed on sledges, other sledges were 
loaded with provisions, and the ship's company started on another one of 
those Arctic marches that often end at so sad a goal. Until the 14th of 
August they were plodding over the ice before they reached the edge of the 



SECRETS WON FROM THE FROZEN NORTH 93 

pack and launched their boats, in which they sailed for three weeks before 
being picked up by a Russian vessel. 

This has always been regarded as one of the greatest achievements in 
polar work of this century, not only because of the heroism and skill shown, 
and the new lands discovered, but because it promised so much for the 
future — a promise that has been largely fulfilled. 

The next important expedition was another attack upon the Northeast 
Passage, the hope of which would not "down"; and it was under the 
leadership of Professor Adolf Erik Nordenskjold, a Swedish geologist and 
naturalist of Stockholm, although born in Finland, who had made several 
previous journeys to Greenland, Spitzbergen, etc., which were fruitful of 
scientific results. Then he turned his attention to Siberia; and in 1875 and 
again in 1876 he sailed to the mouth of the Yenisei, as also Captain 
Wiggins of Sunderland, England, was then doing, in a profitable trade 
with the Siberians, which has been kept up more or less regularly ever 
since. These experiences convinced him that it was worth while to try 
once more to work one's way through the Siberian ocean to Bering Strait. 

He obtained and outfitted the steamer Vega, and arranged that a smaller 
supply-steamer, the Lena, should accompany him as far as the mouth of the 
river Lena — a bold proposition in itself, for that was a thousand miles be- 
yond the Yenisei. Nevertheless, this program was carried out ; for leaving 
Gothenberg on July 4, 1878, a month later they were traversing the Kara 
Sea, and on August 19 passed Cape Chelyuskin, which, up to that time, 
had defied all attempts and has since closed the gate to all but the daring 
Nansen. A week later the mouth of the Lena was reached, and the little 
tender, unloading her coal and other stores into the depleted hold of the 
Vega, turned west, and actually sailed back to civilization uninjured. 

The Vega then hastened on eastward, and came near getting right 
throug-h to Bering Strait in that one season; but this was more than the 
indulgent Arctic gods could grant, and at the end of September the men 
found themselves frozen into the ice off North Cape (where Cook turned 
back in 1778), only one hundred and twenty miles from Bering Strait. 
Here they were near shore, the country was inhabited by Tchuktches — a 
nomadic people, with herds of reindeer, who take the place in Siberia of 
the Eskimos of Arctic America ; and the time was well spent in gathering 
a knowledge of these people and their country, and in making very valu- 
able collections in zoology and anthropology. 

It was not until July 18, 1879, however, that their prison-gates opened, 
and the Vega steamed on. These waters were familiar enough to naviga- 
tors ; and Nordenskjold proceeded straight east, passed down through 



94 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

Bering Strait on the next day but one (so near was he), and thus easily 
accomplished that which had baffled men since first it had been tried by the 
unfortunate Willoughby three hundred and twenty-six years before. 

But though the Northeast Passage had thus been found, it was of no 
more practical value to commerce than the solving of the Northwest Passage 
had been, and the value received from the cruise was in the scientific infor- 
mation gained, the more accurate delineation of the coast, and the increased 
knowledge of winds, currents, magnetic phenomena, and the behavior of the 
floating ice-fields on that side of the polar area. When at last, however, the 
Vega had circumnavigated the globe by this extraordinary course, returning 
home through the Suez Canal, as no Arctic expedition had ever been 
expected to do, its commander was made a baron, and all his men were 
loaded with praises and honors, while his book, "The Voyage of the 
Vega" printed in four or five languages, spread their fame throughout 
the world. 

Now while the Vega was drifting slowly about northeast of Siberia 
during that early summer of 1879, not only were Schwatka hunting for 
Franklin relics with the Eskimos of King William's Land, the Danish Cap- 
tain Jansen tracing the northeast coast of Greenland, and Dutch and Eng- 
lish explorers investigating the neighborhood of Francis Joseph Land, but 
within a few leagues of Nordenskjold and his men there was beginning one 
of the most dreadful of those tragedies that have seared with suffering the 
track of Arctic exploration since men began to pry into the secrets of the 
frozen North: I mean the story of the Jeannette. 

Many readers of this book will easily remember the intense interest which 
the starting of this expedition created in the United States, for it was organ- 
ized at the suggestion and expense of James Gordon Bennett, the proprietor 
of the New York Herald. The government cooperated, however, lending 
from its navy the officers and men needful, and otherwise aiding the project. 
The vessel itself was the steam yacht Pandora, which had been proved a 
worthy craft by Sir Allen Young in his search for the magnetic pole in 1875, 
and which Mr. Bennett had bought and rechristened. 

Supplied with everything science and experience could suggest, the Jean- 
nette sailed from San Francisco on July 8, 1879, and missing the incoming 
Vega among the fogs of Bering Sea, passed through into the Siberian ocean, 
bound poleward. The last report of her was that she had been seen Sep- 
tember 3d steaming toward Wrangell Land, which had been sighted by 
American whalers in 1867, and was generally regarded as of continental extent 
northward. It is now known that De Long intended to reach it and winter 
there ; but to his dismay he could not escape from the ice-pack, and to his 



SECRETS WON FROM THE FROZEN NORTH 95 

astonishment found himself drifting past the northern margin of Wrangell 
Land, thus proving it an island about seventy miles long. 

When two years had passed and no tidings had been received, the United 
States government equipped a search expedition in the steamer Rodgers, 
commanded by Lieutenant Berry, which in 1 88 1 reached and examined 
Wrano-ell Land, and then went north farther even than Collinson, reaching 
72>° 44'. the highest point yet attained immediately north of Bering Strait, 
where the paleocrystic ice spreads much farther from the pole than on the 
x\merican side. But he found no trace of the Jeannette, and himself had a 
hard time getting home, for the Rodgers was burned in her winter quarters. 

What then had befallen the lost vessel ? She had become beset in the 
ice and drifted with the pack around the north end of Wrangell Island, and 
then west, until at the end of twenty-two months she had been crushed, and 
sunk on June 12, 1881, in latitude jj° 15' N., and longitude 155 E. Two 
small islands, named Jeannette and Henrietta, had been visited some distance 
east of the scene of the catastrophe; but when the crews, saving themselves 
and what little they could on the ice, started to drag their boats and sledges 
homeward, they headed directly south, and soon found a new island, named 
Bennett, which is the northernmost of the New Siberia group. 

It would be a sad task, were it possible, to relate here the frightful hard- 
ships of that journey through the fast-gathering Arctic night toward the 
bleak coast of Siberia. Having passed the islands, open water was found, 
and the starving men embarked in their three boats for the mouth of the 
Lena; but soon they were separated in a storm, and each one proceeded as 
best he could. One boat foundered in the first gale. Another, in charge 
of Melville (now engineer-in-chief, U. S. N.), reached an eastern mouth 
of the river and ascended it to a Russian village. A third boat, with De 
Long and others, also reached the Lena delta, but only two seamen were 
able to proceed afoot to Bulun, a far-away Russian settlement. Melville 
heard of this, and made haste to start out searching parties, but they were 
too late. De Long and his crew had died of exhaustion, and it was not 
until the next season that their bodies and records were fully recovered. 

Nevertheless, as we are assured by experts, the results of this unfor- 
tunate expedition were important, physically and geographically. "They 
covered some 50,000 square miles of polar ocean, and clearly indicate the 
conditions of an equal area between their line of drift and the Asiatic 
coast." De Lone believed the Siberian ocean to be a shallow sea, dotted 
with islands ; and his conclusions have been confirmed by the admirable 
scientific work since of Toll, Bunge, and other Europeans who have explored 
the Liachoff Islands and other places in that part of the Arctic realm. 



96 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

The desire for scientific study of the polar world had now become the 
motive for northern research, though men were still ambitious to reach the 
pole ; and when Sir George Nares returned from the great British expedi- 
tion of 1875, to tell how the men of the Alert had reached a wintering- 
point beyond Robeson Channel, on the west coast of Greenland, in lati- 
tude 82 27' N., and that Markham and a sledge-party had gone about one 
degree farther (to 83 ° 20' 26" N.), greater pride was felt in this fact, per- 
haps, than in the careful observations and collections that the ships had 
made. This remained the advance record until the memorable feat of Lieu- 
tenant Lockwood of the American Greely expedition eight years later. 

This expedition was one of several acting in concert, according to a 
scheme suggested by Weyprecht, and perfected at international congresses 
of interested men meeting at Hamburg in 1879 and at St. Petersburg in 
1882. This plan was for the establishment by various governments of a 
ring of stations as far within the Arctic circle as practicable, where simul- 
taneous daily observations of the weather, magnetic conditions, tides, cur- 
rents, etc., might be made. The arrangement was begun in the summer 
of 1883, and observing stations were established by Austria on Jan Mayen 
Island ; by Denmark at Godthaab, Greenland ; by Germany on Cumberland 
Bay, west of Davis Straits ; by Great Britain at Great Slave Lake, Canada ; 
by Holland at the mouth of the Yenisei ; by Norway at Alten Fjiord, Nor- 
way ; by Russia at the mouth of the Lena, and on Nova Zembla ; by Sweden 
on Spitzbergen ; and by the United States at Point Barrow, Alaska, and, 
farthest north of all, Lady Franklin Bay, Greenland. Nothing need be said 
about most of these stations — all were successful except the Dutch; but 
to the last-named belongs a story that Americans will not forget. 

The command of the Lady Franklin Bay Station was assigned to Lieu- 
tenant A. W. Greely — not a naval lieutenant, but, like Schwatka, a cav- 
alry officer, then assigned to duty in the Signal Service, to which (because 
it then supervised the Weather Bureau) the government had intrusted this 
matter. A steamer easily conveyed Greely and his party to Lady Franklin 
Bay, and left them there with a good house ready to be set up, and supplies 
of all sorts for two years. The prescribed series of observations with bar- 
ometers and thermometers, wind-gages, tide-gages, magnetic instruments 
and all the rest, were at once begun, and two winters passed comfortably 
enough. Dogs and Eskimo drivers had been obtained, and several journeys 
were made, of which the most important was Lockwood's advance toward 
the pole, of which an account has been succinctly supplied by General 
Greely himself in his admirable " Handbook of Arctic Discoveries." 

Lieutenant J. B. Lockwood, one of the principal assistants, who had 



SECRETS WON FROM THE FROZEN NORTH 



97 



already displayed great skill and energy in sledging, even in prolonged 
temperature as low as Si F. below freezing, undertook a long exploring 
trip up the Greenland coast, to or beyond Cape Britannia. A large party 
went with him at first, but gradually men were sent back, after establishing 
supply-depots. " The journey onward was marked by severe storms, 
rough ice, broken sledges, snow-blindness, minor injuries, and — worst of all 
for loaded sledges — soft, deep snow." At last, some distance north of Cape 




SCENERY OF GRINNELL LAND AND THE ARCTIC SEA. 



Bryant, all turned back except Lockwood, Sergeant Brainard, and an Es- 
kimo, Christiansen, who, with twenty-five days' rations, pushed on. In five 
and one half days they had reached Cape Britannia — the farthest north of 
the Nares expedition — 82 20' N. Halting here only long enough to 
study the landscape from its summit, and make sure of the remarkable fact 
that this northern end of Greenland is free from the ice-cap, whose northern 
limit is about lat. 82 ° N., they rounded a cape, and crossing channel after 
channel filled with ice, which showed that all this district is an archi- 
pelago, reached on May 10th Mary Murray Island, 83 19' N. "A violent 
gale delayed them sixty-three hours, the cold exhausting them physically 



98 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

and the delay mentally. If weather forbade travel, life must be sustained ; 
but they tasted insufficient food only at intervals of fifteen, twenty-four, and 
nineteen hours — the last as clearing weather made progress possible. 
Floes so high that the sledge was lowered by dog-traces, ice so broken that 
the ax cleared the way, and widening water-cracks in increasing numbers 
impeded progress. But, despite all obstacles, they reached, May 13, 1882, 
Lockwood Island, S3 24' N., 42 , 45' W., the farthest of their journey, 
and the highest north [by land], then or now." 

They could see land several miles northeast, which they named Cape 
Washington, the highest known land, and toward the north Could overlook 
a polar sea to within three hundred and fifty miles of the pole. Even here 
plants were numerous, and foxes, hares, lemmings, and ptarmigans existed. 
The three heroic travelers returned safely, reaching headquarters on June 
3d. Another expedition by Lockwood and his two companions explored 
and located the west coast of mountainous and glacier-girt Grinnell Land, 
where the musk-ox and Eskimo hunters range to the northern border. 

The summer of 1883 brought no relief-ship, and the plan of escape must 
be put into execution at once. A ship had, in fact, tried to reach Greely in 
1882, but, failing, had left supplies of provisions at Cape Sabine and else- 
where. In 1883 another relief expedition sent north was dreadfully mis- 
managed, and finally the ship itself was lost, and, instead of leaving supplies, 
took away all that had been stored at Cape Sabine — the precise point 
where they were to be needed. 

Leaving Lady Franklin Bay in August in open boats, the party man- 
aged, after desperate exertions, to get near Cape Sabine, and safely landed 
on Bedford Pirn Island, on the northwestern shore of Smith Sound, October 
15, 1883. Of the misery that followed, let Greely himself tell us: 

Winter had begun, the polar night was imminent, clothing in rags, fuel wanting, and forty 
days' rations must tide over 250 days, till help could come. The main party put up a hut of 
rocks, canvas, boat- and snow-slabs, while selected men scoured the coasts for caches, sought 
land-game, and watched seal-holes, until utter darkness drove all to the hut. Scientific observa- 
tions were unremittingly made, amusements devised, a spring campaign planned, and the return- 
ing sun found only one dead. Efforts to cross Smith Sound failed, and a hunting trip to the 
west found a new (Schley) land, but no game. Finally game came so inadequately that food 
failed, and one by one men died — Jens seal-hunting, and Rice striving to bring in a cache. 
Courage and solidarity continued ; and if Greely gave to the maimed Ellison double food while 
it lasted, he did not hesitate to order in writing the execution of a man serving under an assumed 
name of Henry, who repeatedly stole sealskin thongs, the only remaining food. Flowers, 
plants, seaweed, and lichens eked out life for the six, till June 22, 1884, when the relief-ships, 
Thetis and Bear, under Captain W. S. Schley and Commander W. Ff. Emory, rescued them. 
Records, instruments, and collections were saved to tell the story of an expedition that failed not 
in aught intrusted to it, and whose members perished through others. 



SECRETS WON FROM THE FROZEN NORTH 99 

To another piece of brilliant work, that of Lieutenant R. E. Peary, U. S. N., 
I can give .only a few words, because, like so much else that might be 
said of Arctic researches, it was by land rather than by sea. By extraor- 
dinary courage, skill, and endurance, he twice crossed northern Green- 
land, showed that it is an island having a northern shore free from inland 
ice in about 82 north latitude, and made stronger Greely's conclusion that 
the lands visited and seen by Lockwood, north of Cape Britannia, are de- 
tached islands. Peary's work may be said to have completed the map of the 
continental boundary of the Arctic Ocean, but he is still busy there. 

Of Nansen, on the contrary, I ought to say as much as I can, because 
his extraordinary voyage in the Fram was perhaps more purely an examina- 
tion of the Arctic Sea than any other ever made. Dr. Fridtjoff Nansen was 
a young Norwegian who had already made his mark in Greenland, where, 
soon after 1880, articles began to be found that had belonged to the Jean- 
nette, and apparently must have drifted thence from where she was lost off 
Siberia. This was only a part of the indications that convinced Dr. 
Nansen that a current flowed across the unknown polar space from the 
neighborhood of Alaska to the northeast coast of Greenland, and thence be- 
came the great Arctic current that we recognize south of Iceland. He 
argued that if a vessel could find this current north of eastern Siberia, she 
would be moved with it until she emerged into the Atlantic. Incidentally 
she might drift directly over the pole. 

With this in view, he raised funds to build and equip a small wooden 
vessel, furnished with both steam and sails, which was so shaped by 
the roundness of her bottom, and so amazingly braced and strengthened 
within, that before any " nips " of the ice would crush her, the pressure 
would lift her out of water — as, in fact, happened many times in the course 
of her wonderful excursion. Nansen chose twelve companions, 1 and though 
some of them were educated men of science, others skilful sea-captains, 
and others common sailors, all lived and worked together in one cabin as 
brothers — the happiest and healthiest lot of men that ever ventured into 
the hyperborean kingdom of desolation. 

Leaving Norway in July, 1893, he struggled through the Kara Sea, and 
it was not until late in September, 1894, that he found himself permanently 
frozen into the great polar pack, north of the New Siberian Islands ; but 
even then he was neither so far north nor so far west as he hoped to get, 
and feared that he was south of his supposed current. For the story of the 
strange life led by those thirteen men on that drifting ship, safe, abundantly 

!The success of this most hazardous venture, although its crew numbered thirteen, is equal to the success of 
Columbus's first voyage, although it began on Friday ! " Luck " has no show when it is pitted against pluck. 



IOO THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

provisioned, dry, warm, lighted by electricity (power for the dynamos being 
gained by a windmill), I can only refer you to Dr. Nansen's book, " Farthest 
North," one of the most interesting Arctic volumes ever penned. Turn- 
ing, zigzagging, now advancing and again retreating as the constantly 
moving ice swayed here and there under the pressure of wind or the drag- 
ging of currents, they nevertheless made a gradual progress westward. 

By March they had reached a point near the crossing of the 70th 
meridian and 85th parallel, and were still fixed in the ice. Then Nansen, 
taking with him Lieutenant Johansen, started north by dog-sledges, in an 
attempt to reach the pole. They could take very few supplies of any sort, 
and how far north they would be able to travel must depend upon their 
ability to return, not to the Fram, which would drift on, but to the. islands 
of Francis Joseph Land, far away south. The ice, bad at first, grew worse 
as they proceeded, being one long stretch of hummocks and jagged ditches, 
with now and then a lane of open water around which they would toil in 
misery only to find a worse one ahead. On April 7th it became certain 
that they must turn back. This was "farthest north," indeed — just above 
the 86th degree, hardly 275 miles from the North Pole. Then it was a race 
against death by cold, or drowning, or starvation. One by one the dogs 
Avere killed to furnish food for the remainder. At last, after almost superhu- 
man labors and thrilling escapes from freezing and drowning and the attacks 
of famished bears, they reached Francis Joseph Land, and spent a winter 
in a hut made out of stones, earth, and raw walrus hides. The next spring 
they plodded on, and by good chance found the camp of the Jackson- Harms- 
worth surveying party (which a few days later would have gone away 
in its steamer), by whom Nansen and Johansen were carried to Norway 
in August, 1896. 

A week later the Fram came in, with every one well and hearty, having 
emerged from the ice just northwest of Spitzbergen. 

Since Nansen's return another Scandinavian, S. A. Andree, with two 
companions, has disappeared into this same desert of ice and silence, in a 
balloon carrying a boat, sledge, tent, and various supplies. It was his in- 
tention to reach the pole if possible, and to do whatever else circumstances 
permitted. Since his departure, on July 10, 1897, from Spitzbergen, he has 
not been heard from, except by a pigeon-message two days later. 

THE SOUTH POLE 

We have followed up to date the history of adventurous and scientific 
exploration of the hardly yielding, yet steadily narrowed, circles of unknown 



SECRETS WON FROM THE FROZEN NORTH 



IOI 




■'-•■'• 






A PENGUIN-ROOST ON THE BEACHES OF VICTORIA LAND. 

Drawn by the Antarctic explorer Borchgrevink. 



coasts and waters about the North Pole. Let us now see what, thus far, 
has been done to wrest from the ocean and ice of its Antarctic antipodes the 
secrets of the South Pole. 

Almost three hundred years ago the existence of islands far to the south- 
ward of any continents became known to navigators, who were driven 
thither by bad weather, and little by little was added to the map of this 
desolate region; but it was not until 1772 that any one went into that 
terrible Antarctic sea for the express purpose of a survey. This man was 
the intrepid Captain Cook, and though he sailed a third of the way around 
the globe in his efforts to find an entrance through the icy barrier, he could 
never penetrate beyond 71 ° south latitude, which is equal to North Cape, 
or the town of Upernavik, in the Arctic region. Later captains did little 
better, until 1841, when Sir James Ross, in his ships Erebus and Terror, — 
the same vessels which afterward met their destruction with the ill-fated 
Franklin expedition, — skirted the edge of the thick ice that everywhere 
clothed the land, though it was midsummer, and finally reached the base of 
the southernmost land yet known on the globe — a magnificent mountain- 
chain stretching away to the south from latitude 78° 10'. 

The most conspicuous point of all this range of polar mountains, which 



102 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

• 

rises from an unexplored continent or great island called Victoria Land, 
is the volcano Mt. Erebus. It was in eruption at the time of Ross's visit, 
and the explorer tries to tell us of the splendor of its display when the wide 
glistening waste of snow and the deep blue of the ocean and the starry sky 
are lit up by the column of fire hurled thousands of feet heavenward from 
its crater : but who can picture the grandeur of such a scene ! This volcano 
is about 1 2,400 feet high, and an extinct neighbor, Mt. Terror, is still higher ; 
while a third peak, Mt. Melbourne, exceeds 15,000 feet in altitude, and 
like all the rest is covered with everlasting snow and glaciers from the 
tempestuous water's edge to its lonely crest. 

Meager as this information is, it is about all we know of the surface of 
the globe within the Antarctic circle ; and it will be extremely difficult to 
learn much more. In a latitude much farther from the pole than that where 
in the north vegetation is abundant, and men and animals live all the year 
round, the severity of the Antarctic climate cuts off all life, and constantly 
seals the water under a cap of ice. The coasts and outlying islands thus 
far examined appear to be wholly volcanic, often composed of nothing but 
alternate layers of ashes and ice ; but the Challenger staff dredged up from 
the edge of the ice south of the middle of the Indian Ocean pieces of gran- 
ite-like and other rocks, such as belong to land regularly formed; so that 
probably the whole uplift does not consist of volcanic materials ; and, further- 
more, rocks containing fossil plants have been found on some of the south- 
ernmost islands which show that in past ages — the period of the coal 
deposits — the climate of that end of the world was mild enough to support 
forests of trees and, doubtless, a large variety of herbage and animals. 
Now most of the coast is unapproachable on account of a border of sea-ice, 
or else cliffs of moving land-ice (glaciers) that give off the flat, table-topped 
icebergs characteristic of the south polar waters. No trace of any land 
animal — except visiting sea-fowl — has been found, and only a little of the 
simplest plants (lichens) ; nor is this surprising when we learn that the high- 
est noonday heat of summer is only a little above the freezing-point. 

Why this intense cold and dreadful desolation exists so much farther 
from the pole in the southern than in the northern hemisphere, I need 
hardly explain to you ; for you will recall that in the north the continents 
are so broad as to form almost an unbroken wall about the narrow polar 
sea, confining its cold waters, warming the air by wide radiation, and guid- 
ing the heated flood of the Gulf Stream straight into the northern sea. In 
the southern hemisphere, on the other hand, an immense breadth of ocean 
south of latitude 40 is broken by no land of any account, and the south- 
ward flowing warm water from the equator becomes spread out so thin 



SECRETS WON FROM THE FROZEN NORTH 



IO3 



upon the vast surface that it is rapidly chilled. It is now generally 
believed, as has been hinted, that the south polar region is a continental 
mass, deeply buried in an ice-sheet that is ever fed in the center as fast as 
it wastes away at the circumference ; for the prevailing winds there tend 
toward the pole from all sides, and carry loads of moisture to be condensed 
and fall in ceaseless snows. 

The Antarctic seas, however, are by no means lifeless, but abound not 
only in fishes, — cod are said to throng in these waters in prodigious num- 




ICE-CLIFFS AND TABLE-TOPPED BERGS, CHARACTERISTIC OF 
THE ANTARCTIC REGION. 



bers, — but several varieties of whales, dolphins, and their kin (which will 
be described in one of the later chapters), and many kinds of seals, notably 
the huge sea-elephant, now becoming rare elsewhere. Then, too, the Ant- 
arctic islands and headlands are the resort of enormous flocks of certain 
sea-birds, all different from the Arctic species of their families, which subsist 
upon the fishes and less creatures in the water, and go to the lonely shores 
outside the ice-cap only for rest and to make their nests. Of all these the 
penguins are most numerous and most hardy, and a whole chapter might 
easily be given to their quaint appearance and quainter ways. It also 



104 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

appears probable that certain migratory birds — especially beach-feeding 
kinds — regularly visit the Antarctic continent in summer from Patagonia, 
and breed there. 

Now what has been gained by all the expense, exertion, and hardship 
of polar exploration ? What has been the charm that has led wise and 
brave men to overcome terrific obstacles, and turn again with deeper and 
deeper longings toward the mystic icy regions ? Lieutenant Maury has given 
one answer: "There icebergs are framed and glaciers launched. There the 
tides have their cradle: the whales their nursery. There the winds com- 
plete their circuits, and the currents of the sea their round in the wonderful 
system of interoceanic circulation. There the Aurora Borealis is lighted 
up, and the trembling needle brought to rest ; and there, too, in the mazes 
of that mystic circle, terrestrial forces of occult power and vast influence 
upon the well-being of man are continually at play. . . . Noble daring 
has made Arctic ice and waters classic ground. It is no feverish excite- 
ment nor vain ambition that leads man there. It is a higher feeling, a holier 
motive, a desire to look into the works of creation, to comprehend the econ- 
omy of our planet, and to grow wiser and better by the knowledge." 

To polar explorers we owe not only the discovery of the waters, coasts, 
and archipelagoes that now are accurately outlined upon our maps within 
the Arctic and Antarctic circles, but vast and valuable products — whale-fish- 
eries, seal-fisheries, cod-fisheries, and many other additions to the wealth 
of the world from the sea, while the Arctic lands have yielded furs and other 
valuable things in great quantity. The study of the people living under 
those adverse northern conditions has been highly instructive, assisting us 
to reconstruct the life in the primitive world ; and what we have learned 
from the records of the Arctic rocks has thrown a bright and unexpected 
light upon the antiquity of the globe. 

To studies of the ocean and atmosphere in very high latitudes science is 
largely indebted for new facts in magnetism, in the movements of the air and 
causes of climate, in the formation and behavior of ice and icebergs, in the 
action of tides and ocean-currents, and in many other departments of know- 
ledge, all of which have been made of use especially to the navigator. Nor 
has this cost over much. Attention has been called to every casualty, and 
the romantic lisrht of adventure has brought into hi°L relief all the hard- 
ships and sometimes horrors of Arctic experience ; but the records show that 
the average of loss and suffering in Arctic work is not greater than that of 
ordinary seafaring and naval careers. Sir Leopold M'Clintock has stated 
publicly that during the thirty- six years when Great Britain was most active 



SECRETS WON FROM THE FROZEN NORTH 



I05 



in polar research, she lost only one expedition and 128 persons out of forty- 
two successive expeditions sent out, and never lost a sledge-party out of a 
hundred that made overland journeys. 

After all, no doubt, the best result has been the human heroism dis- 
played, and the human sympathy developed. "There are," exclaims Pro- 
fessor Nourse, " and ever will be, fair fruits born out of such acts of high 
aspiration, energy, and fortitude, in those who have gone out, and in their 
liberal supporters; exemplars for the lifting up of the discouraged, the edu- 
cation of the young. Certainly volunteers for the paths of discovery will 
offer themselves until the fullest additions to the domain of science have 
had their ino-atherinsf." 




EAGER TO BE FIRST ASHORE IN A NEW LAND. 



CHAPTER VI 



WAR-SHIPS AND NAVAL BATTLES 



PART I WOODEN WALLS, FROM SALAMIS TO TRAFALGAR 



B 


1 ";' -.-■ ■*- ;-,■ 


^l§5 





AVAL warfare, properly speaking, begins with the battle of 
Salamis, 480 b. c, when the Greek fleet, under the guidance 
of Themistocles, destroyed or put to flight a horde of twelve 
hundred Persian vessels, and saved Athens, to become the 
foundation of a strong nation. 
Of these ships at Salamis we know very little, except that they were 
large, open, or partly open, rowboats, having platforms at the stern and 
prow, and perhaps amidships in some cases, where soldiers might stand 
and discharge their arrows out of the way of the rowers beneath them, or 
leap aboard the enemy's boats whenever they could be reached. They were, 
in short, early types of the galleys which subsequently became vessels of war 
as powerful and serviceable, under the conditions they were intended to 
meet, as are our battle-ships to-clay, and probably safer as a fighting-place for 
their crews. 

That from rowboats rather than from sail-boats should have been devel- 
oped the highest type of Mediterranean war-vessel of ancient times is not 
surprising when one remembers the light and variable winds of that region, 
the usually smooth seas, the abundance of harbors, and, above all, the need 
of having the vessels under complete control when all fighting had to be done 
at short range — chiefly by ramming and boarding, in fact. It must be 
remembered, too, that labor was cheap ; and it was considered that the most 
proper and economical — not to say humane — use to which prisoners of war 
could be put was to make them rowers in public ships, while enough remained 
to be sold as slaves to the owners of private yachts and privateering galleys. 
One may imagine a worse fate than this. 

The earliest war-vessels of the eastern Mediterranean — those of Homer's 



108 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

time, for instance — seem to have been long and rather narrow rowboats, 
the best of which had two tiers of oars, one above the other, the lower, 
shorter tier working through oval holes in the side, and the upper in notches 
or thole-pins on the gunwale. This left the upper rowers exposed,- and 
hence such vessels were called aphract, or " unfenced " ; and it was not until 
the Greeks began to become prominent that the bulwarks were raised high 
enough to protect all the rowers, and war-vessels generally became cata- 
phract, or "fenced." 

It appears that in very early times war-ships {biremes) with not only two 
tiers or banks of oars, but even those {triremes) with three banks, were 
used ; and the trireme became the type of the most numerous and effective 
vessels of the Greek and Roman navies in their prime. And as weight 
and power gradually increased, the crushing power of collision began to be 
utilized, and ramming came in as a more and more important feature in naval 
tactics. As the Greeks seem to have first applied these new ideas, it is quite 
likely that their success at Salamis was due to these improvements. The 
arrangement was this : 

From the side of the vessel (inside) projected three rows of benches, a 
yard apart, horizontally supported at their inner ends by timbers that 
slanted toward the stern at such an angle that the top seat of each row was 
exactly above the bottom seat of the row behind it. The oars of the top 
tier {thranite) were about fourteen feet long, those of the middle tier (zy- 
gitc) about ten and one half feet, and the lowermost one (lhalamite) seven 
and one half feet. Each oar was so nearly balanced in its oar-port as to 
work in the easiest manner, tied there by a thong and surrounded by a loose 
sleeve of leather which kept out the water. Each one of the lowermost oars 
was worked by a single man, the middle ones by two, and those of the third 
tier by three or four, as they were of great length. 

In later times larger vessels were invented for special purposes — four- 
banked (giiadrirenies), five-banked (guinqiiircmes), and so on, even up to 
one of forty banks ; but as we are unable to understand how it was possible 
for more than five or six tiers of oars to be operated, we may leave these 
extraordinary galleys to special students. 1 

The structure of these vessels gave them the greatest strength com- 
bined with lightness. They had very strong keels and stems, the latter 
peculiarly braced ; and along their sides ran waling-pieces, or fore-and-aft 
bracing timbers, the lowermost curving inward forward, until they met in 
front of the stem at the water-line, where they were braced by massive tim- 

1 An example of the so-called forty-bank galley is il- ture of the ship of Ptolemy Philopator, on page 43. The 
lustrated, so far as its forward end will show it, in the pic- forty "banks" appear to be groups of oars in a few tiers. 



WAR-SHIPS AND NAVAL BATTLES 



IO9 



bers, and prolonged into a sharp three-toothed spur, of which the middle 
tooth was the longest, reaching out perhaps ten feet. This was covered 
with metal, usually bronze, and formed the beak. 

"i\bove it, but projecting less beyond the stem-post, was the procmbo- 
lion, or second beak, in which the prolongation of the upper set of waling- 
pieces met. This was generally fashioned into the figure of a ram's head, 
also covered with 
metal. . . . These 
bosses, when a ves- 
sel was rammed, 
completed the work 
of destruction begun 
by the sharp beak at 
the water-level, giv- 
ing a racking blow 
which caused it to 
heel over and so 
eased it off the beak, 
releasing the latter 
before the weight of 
the sinking vessel 
could come upon it." 

The stem was 
often carried up into 
a curving ornament hamilcar's "Stairway of the galleys," at carthage. 
called the acrosto- 

U011, beneath which was a stout-walled deck-space for sailors or the fight- 
ing-men to do their work ; and the stern-post similarly supported a lofty, 
richly ornamented structure (aphtstroii), arching over the officers' quarters. 

Platforms extended up and clown the center of the ship between the 
rowers ; and over their heads was a deck having walls or bulwarks where 
the fighting-men and their various "engines" stood. In addition to this 
an external defended gallery for soldiers and boarders usually ran along the 
outside of the bulwarks above the oars ; and awnings of rawhide were 
stretched over all to ward off grappling-irons. 

It must not be forgotten, however, that these galleys also had three 
pole-masts, and certain sails — probably a huge split lug, with possibly a 
square topsail on the mainmast, while the fore- and mizzenmasts carried 
lateens. At the top of each stick was a round, protected cage filled with 
archers and slingers — the prototype of our "military mast." 




IIO THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

Nor are the size and force of these Greek and Roman men-of-war to be 
despised. The ordinary trireme had a crew of 200 to 225 men in all, 174 
of whom were rowers. The space for cabins and stowage must have been 
little, but this was of small account, since the war-galleys rarely undertook 
long cruises, their tactics being a rush and a sharp fight, and then a quick 
return to harbor, where it was the practice to draw the lighter galleys up on 
shore each night. The transportation of the ships across the isthmus of 
Corinth was not, then, so astonishing a feat as it is sometimes called. 

Rome's experience, however, gained in war and in suppressing the Le- 
vantine pirates, taught her to abandon the heavy, many-banked, unwieldy 
vessels she had at first developed from Greek and Carthaginian models, 
and to trust to a much lighter, swifter, and more manageable style, with far 
less upper structure and rigging, and having only two banks of oars. These 
were called Liburnian galleys. With this change came naturally one of 
tactics, capture by chase and boarding taking the 'place of the earlier at- 
tempt to crush by ramming and overriding the antagonist. 

The armament comprised not only as many soldiers with bows and jav- 
elins as could find room in action, but various machines of offense and 
defense, such as catapults hurling huge stones or marble grape-shot, spear- 
headed rams or huge knives that could be run out against an enemy's hull 
or rigging, arrangements for smashing the enemy's decks, caldrons swung 
at yard-arms, holding burning pitch or oil to be poured upon the foe, and 
often cranes {corvi), provided with grapples that, if one could be made 
fast, would lift an adversary out of water, and turn him upside down. 
No more vivid picture of the life in cruise and battle of a Roman man- 
of-war's man is known to me than that penned by General Lew Wallace 
in " Ben Hur," but I cannot, of course, transter all of it to my pages, as I 
should like to do, and an extract here and there would only spoil the 
pleasure in store for you in re-reading it all. 

Of medieval naval warfare in the Mediterranean, the struo'2'les between 
the weak "principalities and powers" that followed the decay of Rome and 
lasted for a dozen centuries, we know very little. There is more obscurity 
here than even elsewhere in the dim history of the dark ages. It is evident, 
however, that not much change took place in naval architecture. The 
Byzantine empire succeeded to Rome as mistress of the seas, and we know 
that in the ninth century the Byzantine emperors were still building biremes 
(then called dromones) armed with tubes for spouting Greek fire. It should 
be noted that boats having only a single bank of oars came now to be called 
galleys ; and this is the first and proper use of the word, though popularly 
it is now (or until recently was) applied to any large many-oared boat. 



WAR-SHIPS AND NAVAL BATTLES 



I I I 



With the introduction of gunpowder and cannon into naval vessels, the 
ornamental top-works — a picturesque relic of which remains in the Venetian 
gondola of to-day — disappeared, as we see when the clear light of history 
begins to shine on the fleets of Venice and Genoa, when these cities were 
leaders of the world in navigation. Turkey — the successor of the old By- 
zantine empire and of the Greek power — was then, as now, the great enemy 
of the west, but in those days it was aggressive. Its fleets were strong and 
well manned, and they threatened to cross the Adriatic and fasten the baneful 




A COMBAT OF ROMAN GALLEYS (BIREMES). 



grasp of the Moslem upon Italy in revenge for the persecution of the Moors 
in Spain. Perhaps they would have done so had not John of Austria, admiral 
of the allied navies of Spain, Venice, and Rome, won that great victory in the 
harbor of Lepanto, near the isthmus of Corinth, which destroyed nearly the 
whole Turkish fleet, and released fifteen thousand Christian galley-slaves. 
This was in October, 1571, and it saved the West from being overrun by the 
barbarous East, as exactly fifteen and a half centuries before it had been 
saved near Actium, a famous promontory on the northwestern coast of 
Greece, where Octavius defeated the forces of Antony and Cleopatra. 

It is doubtful whether the ships that fought in the later battle were 
much different in either build or rig- from those of the earlier conflict, but 

o 



I 12 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



their decks no more gleamed with men in armor, and in place of catapult, 
crane, and caldron were cannonades and falconets, arquebuses and hand-gre- 
nades. Perhaps, however, they had already taken on more of that long, low 
shape characterizing later the French and Italian galleys, common enough 
in Mediterranean ports up to about one hundred years ago, which differed 
mainly from the ancient ones in their use of much longer oars or sweeps, 
balanced upon a sort of extended outrigger or shelf projecting from the 
vessel's side. The galleass of which we hear in the thirteenth and fourteenth 
centuries was a large war-ship of this style, which foreshadowed the Atlantic 
ships, to be spoken of presently, in having castellated structures fore and 
aft, in which were mounted sometimes twenty guns ; besides its two or 
three lateen-rigged masts, it often had thirty-two sweeps on each side, 
each about forty-five feet long, and handled with a long, slow stroke by 
five or six men — in France mainly convicts "condemned to the galleys." 1 
Such vessels continued to be used by the Spaniards, Maltese, Italians, 
and Turks long after they had been abandoned by the French navy, but 
latterly, after the suppression of piracy, in which they were of especial 
service, for the conveyance of important personages and occasions of cere- 
mony rather than for practical service ; and in the state barge of the Doge 
of Venice, brought out annually to this day at the ceremony of re-wedding 

Venice to the Adriatic, we have a mag- 
nificent relic of these stately cratt. 

But such boats were adapted only 
to the comparatively calm and simple 
navigation of the Mediterranean ; and 
although imitated in the similar waters 
of the eastern Baltic, they never flour- 
ished north of Spain. When they grad- 
ually disappeared, their successor inside 
the gates of Gibraltar was the xebec, 
which began to appear under Arab 
or Spanish control in the seventeenth 
century ; this was supposed to be able 
to withstand any weather, and carried 
from fourteen to twenty-two guns on deck, with small ports for oars 
between the guns. A picturesque relative was the Portuguese muleta. 
The English liked this kind of vessel on account of its strono- sailing 




TYPE OF VENETIAN GALLEY. 



1 Three other terms ofsimilar sound need explanation, used by Malay pirates. The galleon was any Spanish 
The ga/iot was a small, fast galley of the Levant. The ship sailing to and from the Spanish main ; hence, espe- 
gallivat was a large, swift, two-masted, armed sail-boat cially a treasure-ship. 



WAR-SHIPS AND NAVAL BATTLES 



I I 




FORECASTLE OF THE " GREAT 
HARRY" ("GRACE DE DIEU"). 



qualities, but when they took it into their own stormy waters they found 
it necessary to raise its sides to fit them for breasting the high seas that roll 
in the open Atlantic or are tossed by the contending tides of the English 
Channel, and developed out of it a style of 
swift and handy vessel called a frigate. 

During- all these " middle " ages the north- 
ern nations had been sailing and fighting on 
the sea as well as the southerners. Stories 
of sturdy battles have come down in tradition 
and in such chronicles as those of Froissart; 
but those old conflicts seem to have pro- 
duced little change in ship-building or arma- 
ment until the experience and wisdom brought 
back by the Crusaders began to spread abroad 
even in the half-savage North, and to produce 
that revival of learning which by and by was 
to make such striking changes in western 
Europe ; and here the leaders are Englishmen. 

In those days no national navies, properly speaking, existed in Eng- 
land, France, or northward. When a monarch wished to transport troops 
by water to some other land, or make a naval expedition or campaign, he 
fitted out the ships that belonged to the crown as the king's personal prop- 
erty, and compelled his subjects to furnish the rest, just as his feudal prov- 
inces and cities and lords were expected to equip and bring to his standard 
any land forces required. It was to systematize this method somewhat in 
England that William the Conqueror " established the Cinque Ports, and 
gave them certain privileges on condition of their furnishing 52 ships, 
with 24 men in each, for 15 days, in cases of emergency." Now and 
then, at first, Englishmen were disposed to resist the "arrest" of ships, 
which might easily mean the ruin of their business ; and special laws had to 
be made to quell this reluctance. Another quaint and significant feature of 
that practice was this: In every fleet one or more ships were set apart as 
"royal," and either the king or his representatives occupied them with court 
ceremony to carry out the fiction of royal dominion over the sea as well as 
upon the land. It naturally followed in England that after her navy had 
shown its power, and signalized it especially by a brilliant victory over 
Spain in 1380, Edward III should have assumed as an additional title 
"King of the Seas" — an act which had far-reaching consequences. 

During the fifteenth century something like an established navy was 
foreshadowed; but it was not until the reign of Henry VII, when, at the 



114 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

end of the fifteenth century, the whole world was exploring the oceans and 
awakening to the importance of sea power, that the first vessel, properly 
called a national war-ship, was built, equipped, manned, and sustained at 
government expense by England. This was the Great Harry — a floating 
fortress rather than a ship; for, with her towering, overweighted "castles" 
fore and aft, she was unseaworthy, and came near being sunk by a slight 
rolling which poured the water into her lower ports. 

But a better known " Great Harry" was the Henri Grace cic Dieu, built 
by Henry VIII. This king was the real founder of the British navy, pro- 
viding for it many good ships, dock-yards, trained officers, and regularly 
enlisted crews. The advantage of this organization and the superiority 
of English seamanship were demonstrated in the next reign by the defeat 
of the Spanish Armada. 

England was then at war with Spain, and Philip II thought to end the 
matter by means of the greatest expedition ever heard of. It began to be 
prepared in 1587 under the title of the Most Fortunate Armada, 1 but an 
English squadron under Drake attacked the rendezvous at Cadiz, destroyed 
over one hundred vessels and huge quantities of stores, and then so ravaged 
the neighboring coasts as to delay Spain's project for a whole season. 

In midsummer of 1588, however, after an unlucky start, in which it was 
driven back by storms, the dreaded Armada appeared in the English Channel, 
like a close flock of huge birds drifting along the British coast. It consisted 
of about 130 ships, seven of which exceeded 1000 tons burden, and numerous 
small craft, and was armed with nearly 3000 cannon. Its commander was 
the Duke of Medina Sidonia, who was a most incompetent man for the post, 
and it bore, besides nearly 10,000 sailors and galley-slaves, over 10,000 sol- 
diers ; but this naval force was not intended to attack England until after it 
had ferried over from Belgium the Spanish army of the Duke of Parma. 

To such a force as this England opposed a miserably small fleet — only 
34 vessels that could be called ships ; but she hastily armed as many more 
smaller ones as she could, amid great fright and excitement, until finally 
Admiral Howard commanded 80 or 90 ships and boats. There was no 
deficiency in his men, however, — the pick of English "sea-dogs" was at his 
call; and among the leaders of the pack were men we have already met 
elsewhere — Francis Drake, John Hawkins, Martin Frobisher, and others. 

What a sight it must have been on that August day as these ships, flying 
the huge banners of Castile, standing high out of the water, with lofty 
"castles" forward and aft, gaudy with carving and color, the light rippling 
here from silken pennants and flashing there from shining cannon or huge 

1 It was known later as the Invincible Armada. 



WAR-SHIPS AND NAVAL BATTLES 



115 



poop-lanterns, moved past the southern headlands of England, watched by 
half-raging, half-fearful crowds ! And how mystified and indignant must 
these watching country people have been when Admiral Howard, their only 
defender, calmly let the Armada sail by Plymouth, where the English fleet 
lay hid in the Solent, and Captain Drake coolly insisted upon finishing a 
game of bowls before he would go down to his waiting frigate. 




*v\ 



STYLE OF SHIPS IN THE TIME OF THE ARMADA. 



But these captains knew what they were about. In those days, as now, 
in fighting with sailing-vessels the advantage is usually with the one who 
attacks from the windward side ; for then he can manceuver his vessel, 
whereas his enemy, heading toward the wind, can do so only with difficulty 
if at all, and hence cannot easily take a good position or escape from a bad 
one. Howard, therefore, waited until the closely crowded squadrons of 
Spain had passed beyond him up the Channel, when he issued from Plym- 
outh harbor, bore down upon their rear from the windward, and pro- 
ceeded, as one of the reports expressed it, to " pluck their feathers." 

Then began some wonderful days of sea history and naval schooling. 



I 1 6 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

The Spanish vessels were floating castles armed with heavy guns and 
crowded with soldiers armed with muskets and "harquebuses of crock," — 
that is, great blunderbusses supported upon a portable rest. They kept in a 
close crowd, like a phalanx of old Swiss infantry, and supposed that the 
English would move against them in another dense raft, and that they would 
fight from deck to deck of grappled ships as if they were on land. 

But the English knew better. They had few ships as large — the Tri- 
umph, iioo tons, was the biggest — or guns as heavy as the Spaniards'. 
Instead of attacking in a solid mass, therefore, they spread out, hovered on 
the flanks, darted a ship here and there, fired as they saw opportunity, and 
kept their own vessels out of danger as much as possible. In the light and 
variable winds that prevailed, the great galleons of the Armada were almost 
immovable, while the English for the most part had smaller, lighter vessels, 
whose nimbleness and ready obedience to the helm astonished the Spanish. 
Standing low in the water, these would drive their shot right through the 
enemy's hulls, and make off before the Spaniard could depress his guns 
enough to do any damage in return ; while the army of musketeers upon 
whom he had relied so strongly had little chance to do anything at all. 

Thus for a week the English frigates and armed fishing-boats harassed 
the Armada on its way up the Channel, capturing and sinking many of the 
ships, while losing some of its own, of course, until at last the worried and 
baffled squadron managed to gain the roadstead of Calais, where the army 
of the Duke of Parma lay. To carry this army across and begin a cam- 
paign against London seemed now not only out of the question, but the 
safety of the fleet itself was a question ; for a few days later, when a favor- 
able wind arose, several fire-ships came sailing down upon them from the 
blockading Englishmen outside. These fire-ships — an important part 
of every fleet for two or three centuries — were old vessels intended to set 
fire to an enemy's ships. Their yard-arms were set with great iron hooks, 
their hulls and riggings were saturated with oil, their decks loaded with tar- 
barrels, and their old guns overloaded, so as to spread destruction in every 
direction by bursting. Then bold crews sailed these grappling monsters 
as near the enemy as they dared, — and it must have been a service dear to 
the heart of the daring, — set fire to them, lashed their helms, and got away 
in their boats as best they could. 

To escape these dreadful things the Spaniards were obliged to up-an- 
chor and put to sea, losing many ships and lives by fire or the wildly flying 
cannon-balls, or by going ashore in the effort; and then the Englishmen 
followed them again, like wolves after a herd of buffalo in winter. The 
Spaniards dared not go back down the Channel, and nothing remained to 



WAR-SHIPS AND NAVAL BATTLES 



I I 



them but the hazardous voyage around the north of Scotland — a venture 
for which the towering, unwieldy galleons were ill-fitted. Storms over- 
took them in the North Sea and on the Atlantic, and so many were cast 




A SEA-FIGHT OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 

away on the Irish coast, where those who reached the shore were slain, 
that hardly half of the proud Armada crept back to Lisbon and Cadiz. 
This incident was one of the most notable in European history for two 
reasons : First, historically, it no doubt saved England and her colonies 
from the Inquisition, and all the other depressing and horrible burdens that 
long afterward weighted the papal countries of southern Europe and their 
American possessions ; and, second, it reformed naval warfare not only by 



Il8 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

confirming the value of a regularly organized national navy, but by show- 
ing that the old-fashioned, dense fleet formation, carrying soldiers to fight 
as they would do on land, was wrong and ineffective. 

But though Spain had been humbled she was by no means crushed, and 
sea-fighting went on a long time before either she, the French, or the Dutch 
— and the last were the hardest foes — would fully admit England's claim 
to be sovereign of ail the seas around Britain, and strike their flags when- 
ever they met one of her "king's ships" in acknowledgment of it. Eng- 
land asserted that the domain of her crown covered not only the lands of 
England (and much of France), but also "the narrow seas"; and she 
defined this domain to include all the Channel waters north of Cape 
Finisterre and thence in a square area westward to the middle of the At- 
lantic. This was not an assertion : " I can beat the world in sea-fight- 
ine," but was a leg-al claim to rule — a declaration that her laws extended 
over that much sea in the same manner that it is now agreed that the 
laws of all nations extend to a distance of three miles from their coasts. 

The whole idea of naval warfare in those days was defense of your 
own commerce and attack upon your enemy's ; and at that time any one 
you met under another flag was likely to be your "enemy" if either party 
promised spoils worth a fight. Hence not only did privateering flourish, — 
often degenerating into piracy, — not only did all merchant vessels go heavily 
armed, but the royal ships were intended principally for convoying or 
guarding merchantmen. This theory, which was only a part of the gen- 
erally unsettled condition of that formative period, kept up a continual 
state of fighting on the sea, even between peoples nominally at peace, and 
of course led again and again to open wars. These were almost always 
popular, especially among the bold sailors but poor traders of England, 
on account of the chances for prizes and plunder that often more than re- 
paid the expenses and losses of the conflict ; thus the war with the Dutch 
in 1652-54, in which William Penn was a captain, brought in more than 
,£6,000,000 worth of captures — more than the financial cost of the war. 

At this time — the first half of the sixteenth century — Holland was the 
leading commercial nation of the world. Not only had her merchants large 
interests of their own in both the East and West Indies, very extensive 
fisheries in northern waters, and trading stations in the African and American 
coasts, but a large part of the commerce of other nations was conducted in 
Dutch ships, including much of England itself. It was the unrighteous but 
determined effort to break this up by any and every means that brought on 
the second war with Holland, one incident of which was the capture of New 
Amsterdam (New York); for fleets no longer stayed close at home, acting" 



WAR-SHIPS AND NAVAL BATTLES 



II 9 




ATTACKING SPANISH GALLEONS OFF THE AZORES. 



mainly as defenders of coasts, as in the previous century, but now cruised and 
fought on the high seas, as the Spanish had learned in many a hard struggle 
to protect their trading and treasure-ships homeward bound. 

This new practice, however, had required a change in ships and their 
equipment. The English learned this quicker than any one else. They cut 
down the lofty cabins, increased the height, while reducing the weight, of 
masts by inventing jointed topmasts, and replaced the unwieldy lateens by 
an arrangement of lofty, quickly handled square sails. By the middle of 
the seventeenth century ocean-going ships had much the same appearance 
as at present, — although far more elaborately ornamented and bulging 
aft with stern-galleries, — the massive, high-pooped Spanish galleon sur- 
viving longest as a relic of the old type. These changes allowed the arma- 
ment to be taken from the front and rear of the ship, where it had formerly 
been mainly placed, there being no room in the waist, and allowed it to be 
distributed equally up and down the ship, which now began to deliver the 
"broadsides" that formed such a feature in sea-gunnery before the days of 
turreted ironclads, and this, with the constant improvement in the range and 
power of the artillery, soon brought about ideas of battle formation. The 
early plan was to provide a large number of ships, — eighty or one hundred 
on each side in a single action were not uncommon, — because each was 
weak, and also because a great number of fighting-men was thought neces- 
sary, and then to advance from the windward in a compact mass, and 








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WAR-SHIPS AND NAVAL BATTLES 12 1 

endeavor to close with the enemy and capture or destroy him by hand- 
to-hand promiscuous fighting. Our word squadron means a square, and, as 
applied to ships, is a survival from those antiquated methods. 

But when the practice of using fire-ships became common and effective, 
and trimmer, more active ships superseded the cumbrous galleasses, it was 
seen that this close formation only exposed a fleet to destruction, and an 
open order had to be adopted, with a consequent change of tactics. Another 
lesson was, that a sea-fight was a sailor's battle, where soldiers were out of 
place, and that to take a great number of weak ships into action, crowded 
with men, was only to risk life unnecessarily. Hence, larger and more 
heavily armed ships, but fewer of them, appear in later engagements ; and 
in place of a bunch of vessels, "huddled together like a flock of sheep," at 
which to shoot, the open order gave the gunners small and single targets. 

All these changes combined to enforce the wisdom of meeting an enemy 
in a widely spaced line, where the strongest fighting-ships were put forward, 
and smaller vessels came up in the rear. Those ahead met the battle-ships 
at the head of the enemy's column, and the lesser ones, as they came up, 
were paired off against those of their own size, so that the battle became a 
series of equalized duels. Such was the theory of naval tactics in the 
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries ; and so arose the term line-of-battle 
ship, descriptive of such national craft as are shown on the opposite page. 

These fine old line-of-battle ships were large and powerful before the 
seventeenth century ended. Thus in the British navy when 1 700 came 
in there were eight which had from ninety-six to one hundred and ten guns 
each — fifty-three others carrying more than seventy guns, and twenty- 
three more with more than fifty guns — all at that time regarded as fit 
for the line of battle, though a hundred years later nothing less than a 
"seventy-four " was so considered. Such were the grandly picturesque old 
vessels that won the day at Gibraltar, Copenhagen, and Trafalgar, and at 
many another spot where the whole horizon echoed to their thunderous 
broadsides; but of them all there now remain only a few honored hulks in 
harbors, or a few grand figureheads preserved in docks and museums. 

Each navy, however, had a greater number of smaller, more active 
vessels, known as frigates, corvettes, sloops-of-war, gun-brigs, etc., which 
carried from twenty to forty-four guns, and were the "eyes of the fleet," as 
one old strategist styled them. They answered to what we should now 
call cruisers, and often went on duty in distant parts of the world, or in 
war were scouting about and supporting the main fleet. This class was 
especially cultivated by the United States, as soon as it began to make a 
regular navy, at the close of the Revolutionary War, and six frigates were 



122 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

built at our six navy-yards during the last years of the last century, which 
were intended and proved to be separately " superior to any single Euro- 
pean frigate of the usual dimensions " in speed, maneuvering, and fighting 
power, in proportion to their weight of ordnance. Three of them {Con- 
stellation, Cong7 r ess, and Chesapeake) mounted thirty-six guns, and three 
{United States, President, and Constitution) forty-four guns each — mainly 
24-pounders ; and all gave so good an account of themselves, as ships, that 
the high compliment was paid us of their being carefully imitated by 
foreign naval constructors. 

This is not a naval history, so that I am not concerned to tell of all the 
glorious or inglorious work of the navies of Europe in obtaining and hold- 
ing, or failing to get and keep, trade routes open and territorial possessions 
intact in various parts of the world. During the seventeenth and eigh- 
teenth and far into the nineteenth century, there was no time when some 
nations were not fighting on the sea if not on land ; and much of the time 
all the maritime nations were hard at it, turning their guns to-day on the 
allies of yesterday, and fighting shoulder to shoulder with them the next 
season against some friend of the year before. 

A few of the most famous battles ought to be spoken of, however, as 
illustrating the methods and development of naval warfare, and because we 
now recognize that their consequences were far-reaching. 

In the wars which broke out toward the close of the eighteenth century 
due to Napoleon's ambition to rule the world, Great Britain found herself 
engaged in a struggle not only with France, but really with the whole 
world, for the command of the seas that washed the western coast of Europe. 
The only sign of friendship to England from the Baltic to Gibraltar was in 
the doubtful neutrality of Portugal. England had to abandon the Mediter- 
ranean, and devote herself to facing the allied powers against her outside the 
Gates of Hercules as best she could. In 1797 she made a beginning by 
crushing a fleet of Dutch ships off Camperdown (Holland), and a Spanish 
fleet off Cape St. Vincent ; but, though both were great battles, neither had 
any lasting effect ; and in spite of them Napoleon planned his celebrated 
invasion of England for the following year, supposing that by his expedi- 
tion to Egypt, threatening England's East Indian possessions, he would 
draw away so much of the British navy that he and his allies could put an 
army across the English Channel unhindered. I need not say that his in- 
vasion of England never was even attempted ; but for a time his fleet did hold 
command of the Mediterranean — a state of things to which an end was put 
by England's most famous naval hero, Horatio Nelson. 

A long series of brilliant exploits had given Nelson fame, and the vig- 



WAR-SHIPS AND NAVAL BATTLES I 23 

orous accounts of them he used to send home helped his great popularity. 
A large part of his service had been in American waters. " 

In 1798 Nelson was a rear-admiral, and was sent to the Mediterranean 
after the French fleet, which, having convoyed Napoleon's army to its 
landing at Alexandria, was ready for new operations. It is characteristic of 
the slow and almost useless methods of gaining intelligence in those days, 




WHEN DECATUR WAS A MIDSHIPMAN. 



that from early June to the end of July Nelson searched for this flotilla, and 
was unable to get more news of it than an occasional rumor that it had been 
at some place or other days or weeks before. The French knew no more 
as to the movements of their pursuers, yet the fleets were twice within a 
few miles of each other. This was Nelson's first independent command, 
and his patience and nerves were nearly worn out by anxiety. 

At last, on the first day of August, the English almost stumbled on the 
French at anchor in the Bay of Aboukir, among the mouths of the Nile, 



124 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

between Alexandria and Rosetta — a shallow roadstead full of shoals and 
rocks, for which Nelson had neither chart nor pilot. 

In the interior of this bay lay the Napoleonic squadron, under Admiral 
Brueys, in such fancied security that a large part of the crews was ashore, 
and some of the ships unprepared for a battle when the British appeared. 
It was anchored in line of battle, however, and consisted of thirteen ships 
of the line, the central one being the flagship Orient, having 120 guns, and 
probably the largest and most complete war-ship then afloat. On each side 
of her were the Franklin and the Tonnant, of 80 guns each, and none of 
the others were greatly inferior. 

The British had also thirteen ships, but none was the equal of the best 
French, and one of them did not engage in the attack at all. Knowing 
nothing of the harbor, and aware that all his ships drew much water, — 
perhaps thirty feet, — Nelson had to make a long and very cautious de- 
tour, throwing the lead every moment and feeling his way in. It was then 
late in the afternoon, and half-past six before the Goliath, leading the col- 
umn, got near enough to attract the French fire. Replying, but not halting, 
the Goliath, followed closely by the Zealous and Orion, made for the head 
of the line, and then with a daring unrivaled, for there was barely enough 
water to float their keels, these ships slowly turned around the foremost 
French vessel and dropped their anchors in the rear of the enemy's line. 
The other ships, as they came up, ranged alongside the front of the French, 
and the deepening twilight resounded with such a roar of broadsides as 
never will be heard again. 

In the darkness and smoke an English seventy-four, the Bellerophon, 
had engaged the monstrous Orient, and in a short time had been crushed ; 
all her masts were swept out of her, two hundred of her people were 
killed and wounded, and she drifted out of action. But nearly the same fate 
had by that time overtaken the French Gueri'iere, for the Theseus had coolly 
placed herself where she could rake the anchored ship and tear her to pieces. 
The moment the Bellerophon drifted off, however, her place was taken by 
two newly arrived frigates, and the Orient presently found herself the target 
of three ships which slowly but surely were cutting her to pieces in spite of 
her tremendous resistance. Her admiral had been killed on her deck, where 
half her officers and men lay dead or wounded, when it was suddenly seen 
that she was on fire, and the whole battle was instinctively suspended to 
watch the magnificent spectacle, save where some still poured in shot and 
shell to prevent the French crew from extinguishing the flames. 

Powerless either to save their ship or launch their boats, the remnant 
of the Orient's crew could only fling themselves into the water and trust 



WAR-SHIPS AND NAVAL BATTLES 



125 



to the mingled boats of friends and foes to pick them up. The ships near- 
est slipped their cables, and tried to edge away out of danger as the flames 
enveloped the towering masts, burning with amazing fierceness in the tarred 
rigging and lighting up the desert for miles inland, while the hull became a 
furnace. Suddenly, at a quarter before ten, a volcano-like explosion tore 
the glowing old battle-ship asunder, a torrent of burning fragments was 




DRAWN BY WARREN SHEPPARD. 



THE "THESEUS" ATTACKING THE "GUERRIERE." 



hurled aloft, — with how many dead heroes, no one knows, — and double 
darkness closed over the appalling scene. Then the black waves were 
lighted anew by the flash of cannon and musketry, and the battle went on 
until daylight before the last of the French vessels had been conquered, while 
two of them had managed to steal away. Of the other eleven one had been 
burned and sunk, three had gone ashore, where one burned, and the remain- 
der had been crushed into surrendering. The English did not lose a single 
vessel, for even the dismantled Bellerophon could float, and their loss in men 
was far less than that of the French. 

Historians tell us that this victory was the grandest naval success on 
record. Nelson himself said that victory was too weak a term — it was a 
catastrophe. It put an end at once to Napoleon's campaign in Egypt, and 
to all his designs against India. It gave the command of the Mediterranean 
to England, emboldened Turkev and Russia to recover the Ionian Islands, 



126 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

gave Naples a chance to assert herself, and aroused Austria and Russia to 
resist by armies Napoleon's aggressions, so that from this battle dates his 
downfall. Its influence soon reached the United States, and caused it to 
break through its neutrality and begin upon the sea that naval war with 
France of which we hear very little nowadays, but which gave to our own 
naval record such glorious incidents as Truxton's battles in the Constellation 
with L'Insurgente and La Vengeance, and Captain Little's capture, in the 
corvette Boston, of the French sloop-of-war Le Berceau. 

Nelson remained in the Mediterranean for some years, by no means idle, 
and then did service of extraordinary value elsewhere, as at the battle of 
Copenhagen, which in a single remarkable conflict put an end to a northern 
conspiracy against England, and saved her a vast deal of trouble ; but his 
final service was the most momentous of all, at any rate for the fortunes of 
Great Britain alone, and this was the winning of the battle of Trafalgar. 

In 1805 Napoleon had prepared for another grand invasion of England, 
and with great skill had gathered a fleet of allied French and Spanish ves- 
sels, which was to protect and cooperate with the strong army he proposed 
to land along the Kentish shores. This fleet was commanded by Admiral 
Villeneuve, and assembled at Cadiz, where, in October, 1805, it was being 
watched by an English fleet, commanded by Nelson and Collingwood, con- 
sisting of thirty-three ships of the line ; twenty-seven of these were present 
when, on the morning of the 21st, the allies, twenty-nine battle-ships strong, 
came sailing out, hoping to avoid battle if possible. This, Nelson was re- 
solved, should not happen ; and dividing his forces into two columns, he 
made at them in such a way as to strike their line (then off Cape Trafalgar) 
in the middle of its crescent. The wind was very light, and an hour or 
more elapsed before even the heads of the line struck the enemy, so that 
there was plenty of time to make every preparation, and there was constant 
instruction by signaling from Nelson's flagship Victory. Then at the last 
moment, when the first gun was ready to be fired, there rose upon the signal 
halyards of the Victory the message that, received with ringing cheers, has 
been an inspiration to patriots the world around ever since — 

England expects every man will do his duty. 

A few moments later Collingwood in the Royal Sovereign, and Nelson 
in the Victory, were in the thick of the foreign fleet, which awaited them in 
disorderly array, but closed about these two, bent upon destroying them if 
possible- before any others could come up. The fury of the duels that 
ensued, where ships were mixed in disorder, and sometimes three or four 
against one, passes adequate description. None, perhaps, fared worse than 



WAR-SHIPS AND NAVAL BATTLES 



127 



England expects every man will do his D 




DRAWN FROM THE MODEL IN THE GREENWICH MUSEUM 



NELSON'S SIGNAL. 



the Belle Isle, a large English two-decker that was the first to reach 
the scene after the Royal Sovereign, and to draw off some of the fire that 
threatened to pulverize Collingwood's ship. 

The wreckage and suffering on other ships were almost as great. The 
very first broadside of the Royal Sovereign, taking the Santa Ana, struck 
down 400 out of the 1000 persons aboard; and the Sovereign herself soon 
lost every mast. The Santissima Trinidada, a Spanish four-decker, and 
the largest ship then afloat, was reduced to a wreck, and a dozen others 
lost a part or all of their masts. As for the Victory, she was always in the 
thick of it, receiving- at one time the concentrated fire of seven hostile bat- 
tie-ships, yet was not too much disabled to be manceuvered. Her captain's 
aim was to engage directly with the French flagship Bucentaure, but she 
was closely attended by three other large ships, and difficult to reach. 
Nevertheless, the Victory finally got across her stern, and from a few yards 
distance poured in a broadside which, sweeping the whole length of her 
interior, dismounted twenty guns, and killed and wounded 400 men. As 
she passed on, returning the fire of the other vessels near by, she was 
closely followed by the Temeraire, the second English ship, which had 
already become almost unmanageable; and a lifting of the smoke showed 
her smashing a little French frigate, the Redoubtable, which, by and by, was 
captured after almost every man had been killed, and she was in a sinking 
condition. The astonishing resistance of this little vessel, and the damage 
she did by soldiers with muskets crowded in her tops and firing down upon 
the decks of the English ships, form one of the most noteworthy incidents 
of naval history ; and it is not too much to say that she inflicted upon Great 
Britain as great harm as all the rest of the allies put together, for it was a 
musket-ball from the mizzentop of the Redoubtable that struck down, early 
in the action, the great Nelson himself. He seemed to have had a feeling, 
even before leaving England, that he would not survive this campaign, and 



128 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

knew his wound was mortal the instant it was received. He was carried 
below, and remained alive and conscious about three hours, eagerly listen- 
ing to reports of the progress of the fight, and rejoicing at last in a know- 
ledge of victory. His last words, murmured again and again, with his 
failing breath, seemed an answer to his signaled injunction, for they were: 
" Thank God I have done my duty." 

Other men [writes Captain Mahan] have died in the hour of victory, but to no other 
has victory so singular and so signal stamped the fulfilment and completion of a great life's 
work. " Finis coronat opus " has of no man been more true than of Nelson. Results momen- 
tous and stupendous were to flow from the annihilation of all sea power except that of Great 
Britain, which was Nelson's great achievement ; but his part was done when Trafalgar was 
fought, and his death in the moment of completed success has obtained for that superb victory 
an immortality of fame which even its own grandeur could scarcely have insured. 

No such fleet actions as this ever occurred in North American waters 
in the time of the "old navy," though there was plenty of cruising and 
fighting up and down the coast and in the West Indies. The United 
States had made its new flag respected before the end of the eighteenth 
century, but it was done mainly in European waters, where that marvelous 
captain, Paul Jones, had been defying enemies to the point of rashness. 

Paul Jones was the first man to hoist our national ensign (the rattlesnake 
flag) on an American ship, and again the first to hoist the stars and stripes, 
and was the ranking officer of the continental navy. He records that "in 
the Revolution he had twenty-three battles and solemn rencounters by sea ; 
made seven descents in Britain and her colonies ; took of her navy two ships 
of equal and two of far superior force," and so on. It is true that he alone 
of his day steadfastly refused to acknowledge England's supremacy of the 
seas; that the flag of the United States alone was never struck to Great 
Britain except under force of honorable combat; and that on the ships 
commanded by Paul Jones it was never struck at all ! 

Every Yankee school-boy knows of the terrible fight of the crazy old 
sloop-of-war Bon Homme Richard against the Serapis, a new English 50- 
gun frigate in the North Sea, in which a sinking and burning and shot- 
riddled vessel, able after the first broadside to bring only three or four small 
guns into practice, conquered and captured her twice-greater antagonist. 
It is not a story one can tell in a few words, but it was a deed that is re- 
garded in naval annals as among the most extraordinary in the history 
of the world, and it won for the new republic a credit in Europe that was 
of vast benefit to it and all its wandering citizens. 

Great Britain, though humiliated, had not been seriously hurt by the 



WAR-SHIPS AND NAVAL BATTLES 



I29 




loss of two or three ships out of her six hundred, and she still tried to en- 
force against the rising naval power on the west side of the Atlantic the 
subservience which she received along its eastern shores. It took the 
form of asserting her right to stop and board any American vessel, gov- 
ernmental or private, and seize and impress into her own service any Brit- 
ish subject found serving in the crew. This always met with protest and re- 
sistance, and at last became so galling 
that in 181 2 the United States declared 
war against Great Britain's might rather 
than continue to submit to it. 

This might graduallv overcame us, 
and British fleets sailed up and down 
our coasts unhindered, but not until the 
enemy had been surprised by many 
harder knocks than they anticipated, 
and had learned one thing for certain, — 
that while man for man the Yankees 
were equally good seamen and fighters, 
they were better ship-builders, and could 
teach lessons in that art which their ene- 
mies were not above learning: and finally 
we won by sheer force of victories at sea. 

I have already spoken of the six frigates which were used in that war, as 
admittedly the best of their kind in the world. Except the unlucky Chesa- 
peake, which was rashly carried unprepared into the fatal action against the 
Shannon, where Lawrence lost his life, but won undying fame in the mem- 
ory of his countrymen by his " Don't give up the ship," all did glorious 
work. Thus, the United States under Decatur reduced to a wreck off 
Madeira, and brought as a prize to New York, the British 44-gun frigate 
Macedonian in October, 1812, itself remaining almost uninjured, — a victory 
due to superior seamanship and gunnery. 

The same skill, using a ship of superior sailing power, accounted largely 
for the splendid victory of the United States sloop-of-war Wasp (18 guns), 
a week earlier, near Bermuda, in an encounter with the British sloop Frolic 
(19 guns), where in three quarters of an hour the Frolic was totally dis- 
masted and reduced to a rolling wreck, with ninety killed or wounded out 
of a crew of one hundred and ten, while the Wasp's loss was only ten. A 
British seventy-four then came up and captured both the victor and her 
prize ; but eighteen months later a second Wasp, by reason of her better 
gunnery, cut to pieces at different times two other ships with COmpara- 



BARON NELSON OF THE NILE. 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 






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THE '•FROLIC" REDUCED TO A WRECK BY THE FIRST "WASP" (1812). 



tively small injury to herself. Nor could the President have given so good 
an account of herself in her unfortunate encounter with the Bclvidera, and 
again when chased and finally captured by the squadron led by the Endy- 
mion, had not her sailing qualities and gunnery been of so high an order — 
qualities which also distinguished the American fleets on Lake Erie and 
Lake Champlain. 

But the honors of that brilliant naval war belonged chiefly, after all, to 
the Constitution — " Old Ironsides," as the people loved to call her, — which 
is enshrined in the history and hearts of the United States as Nelson's 
Victory is in those of Great Britain. 

The Constitution was the finest, perhaps, of the United States frigates, 
and a favorite ship with commanders, yet her fame began with her success 
in running away, Broke's British squadron chasing her three nights and 
two days, only to lose her after all. The winds were so light that she sent 
out her boats to help the sails urge her forward. It was only a few days 
after that (August 19, 18 12) that Commodore Isaac Hull, cruising in search 
of the British vessel Guerriere (the same that had been captured from the 
French in the battle of the Nile, and again dismasted at Trafalgar), over- 
hauled her off the coast of Newfoundland. The London newspapers had 
not only been sneering at the Constitution as " a bundle of pine boards sail- 
ing under a bit of striped bunting," but Captain Dacres had sent a boastful 



WAR-SHIPS AND NAVAL BATTLES 131 

challenge to Hull to meet him and see what would happen. The vessels, 
though nominally of different rate, were actually in close equality, and both 
crews were eager for a fair fight. It was already well along in the after- 
noon, and the sea was rough, but Hull would not reply to the enemy's fire 
until he was within pistol-shot, then his broadside opened. 

" Fifteen minutes after the contest began," to quote Lossing's lively account, " the mizzen- 
mast of the Guerriere was shot away, her mainyard was in slings, and her hull, spars, sails, and 
rigging were torn to pieces. By a skilful movement, the Constitution now fell foul of her foe, 
her bowsprit running into the larboard quarter of her antagonist. The cabin of the Constitution 
was set on fire by the explosion of the forward guns of the Guerriere, but the flames were soon 
extinguished. Both parties attempted to board, while the roar of the great guns was terrific. 
The sea was rolling heavily, and would not permit a safe passage from one vessel to the other. 
At length the Constitution became disentangled, and shot ahead of the Guerriere, when the main- 
mast of the latter, shattered into weakness, fell into the sea. The Guerriere, shivered and shorn, 
rolled like a log in the trough of the billows. Hull sent his compliments to Captain Dacres, 
and inquired whether he had struck his flag. Dacres, who was a 'jolly tar,' looking up and 
down at the stumps of his masts, coolly and dryly replied : ' Well, I don't know. Our mizzen- 
mast is gone, our mainmast is gone, — upon the whole you may say we have struck our flag.' " 

Too completely wrecked to be of any further use, the historic old ship was 
set on fire and blown up, and so ended her pride and her story. Hull lost 
only fourteen men killed and wounded, while the British lost seventy, dead, 
and all the survivors prisoners. This calamity, on the heels of similar suc- 
cesses elsewhere for the "bit of striped bunting," spread consternation 
throughout Great Britain not only, but in the other European monarchies, 
for it presaged the rise of a new power to be reckoned with, where novel 
and superior instruments and methods of warfare opposed uncalculated 
forces to the old regime. 

This conviction was enforced upon Europe anew only four months later 
by the Constitution overtaking and crushing in West Indian waters the 
38-gun frigate Java, which also was burned to the water's edge, because 
the wreck was not worth saving ; and again the British loss was many 
times greater than the American. Captain William Bainbridge, who had 
distinguished himself in the Mediterranean, was her commander. 

Various successes marked her career for the next two years, until, 
under the command of Captain Charles Stewart, she had her memorable 
adventure off Madeira, in which she engaged with the two British ships 
Cyane, thirty-six guns, and Levant, eighteen guns, and captured both, with 
a loss of only three men killed and twelve wounded. Stewart set sail with 
his prizes and prisoners for Porto Praya, whence he purposed sending his 
prisoners to New York in a captured merchantman. Reaching there on 



132 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 




THE '-CONSTITUTION" CHASED BY CAPTAIN BROKE'S SQUADRON 

The ports on the upp°r deck aft were roughly cut to meet the emergency. The sailors in the rigging 

threw water from buckets upon the sails to make them hold better the faint breeze, and 

below hose pipe was used to the same purpose. During the three days' 

chase boats were sent out to tow, and kedge-anchors 

were used to warp the ship forward. 



March ioth, he was next day busy at these arrangements, when the topsails 
of several men-of-war were seen entering the harbor through the prevailing 
fog. Having no trust that, if these were British, their commanders would 



WAR-SHIPS AND NAVAL BATTLES 



I 33 



respect the courtesies of a weak neutral port, Stewart felt that his only- 
chance was to try to run away in the fog, and made immediate preparations 
to do so, sending word to the Levant and Cyane to follow. Being discov- 
ered by the strangers — three large British frigates — at the outlet of the 
harbor, their escape immediately became a question of seamanship and 
sailing. Here the Americans showed their superiority, and effectually 
dodging both the ships and the cannon-balls of the pursuers, the Levant 
got back under the protection of the guns of the fort at Porto Praya, while 
the Constitution and Levant fairly outsailed the frigates and escaped. 

In 1830 brave Old Ironsides was condemned as worn out, and ordered 
to be sold. But, as a similar sad fate overtaking the "Fighting Temeraire" 
had been made the occasion of an immortal painting by Turner, and so, 
perhaps, had caused Nelson's still more famous battle-ship Victory to be pre- 
served in the harbor of Portsmouth as a shrine of naval inspiration, so the 
obloquy that menaced the Constitution now fired the heart of a young poet 
to write a passionate appeal to pa- 
triotism. Who does not know Dr. 
Holmes's rinsfino- stanzas? — 

Oh, better that her shattered hulk 

Should sink beneath the wave; 
Her thunders shook the mighty deep, 

And there should be her grave. 
Nail to the mast her holy flag, 

Set every threadbare sail, 
And give her to the God of Storms, 

The lightning and the gale! HOMEWARD BOUND. 




The country caught the spirit, and such a cry of protest went up that 
the vandalism was stayed, and Old Ironsides was again repaired — hardly 
anything but her ornaments was now left of the original structure — and 
took several cruises, one of which was in carrying wheat to famine-stricken 
Ireland. Later she was used as a school-ship, but finally became worthless 
even for that, and in 1895 the question arose whether she should be broken 
up at the Brooklyn navy-yard or towed around to Portsmouth, New Hamp- 
shire, and there laid up in a line with the Macedonian and a few other 
ancient hulks that were rotting quietly away in honorable age, and have 
now wholly disappeared. Sentiment dictated the latter course, and, with a 
crew aboard, prepared to take to their boats at a moment's notice, the leak- 
ing and crazy old warrior, stately even yet, and sadly saluted by every fort 
and vessel she passed, crept around to her last berth at Kittery Point. 
She is the last and the most glorious representative of the "old navy." 
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CHAPTER VI 

{Continued) 

WAR-SHIPS AND NAVAL BATTLES 
PART II THE PRESENT ERA OF STEAM AND STEEL 

| HE introduction of steam made little difference in naval 
affairs at first, so far as either strategy or tactics are con- 
cerned, although it changed the conditions of naval action 
in two principal ways and in many minor ones. Ships could 
now, like the early galleys, be placed in any position the 
commander pleased, and, unlike galleys, this effort could be sustained a 
long time, for engines do not tire out like human arms. On the other 
hand, ships propelled by steam needed to return to port at frequent inter- 
vals to obtain coal, and naval powers found it necessary to provide, either 
by possession or treaty, safe coaling-stations in various parts of the world 
for the use of their cruising fleets. 

The first steam war-ships were naturally fitted with side paddle-wheels; 
but as soon as the screw-propeller came into use the navy was quick to 
adopt it. " By its use the whole motive power could be protected by being 
placed below the water-line. It interfered much less than the paddle with 
the efficiency and handiness of the vessel under sail alone, and it enabled 
ships to be kept generally under sail. Great importance was attached to 
this, as the handling of a ship under sail was justly thought an invaluable 
means of training both officers and men in ready resource, prompt action, 
and self-reliance." For this reason masts and sails were retained long 
after they were admitted to be detrimental to the fighting qualities of 
battle-ships. Naval reformers had to wait until the last generation of "old 
salts," trained on " blue water," had died off, and their scornful sneers at 
"tea-kettle" seamanship had been silenced in the only way possible, before 
they could persuade governments to build or men to serve in the new style 



136 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 




THE 



■KEARSARGE" GETTING INTO POSITION TO RAKE THE 
AT THE CLOSE OF THE COMBAT. 



! ALABAMA' 



of vessels. In truth, the transition from the fighting machinery and meth- 
ods that prevailed until, say, the bombardment of Acre, in 1840, to those 
that decided the inferiority of China in her struggles with Japan at the 
Yalu and elsewhere, was rapid enough to make even a sea-dog dizzy. 

Excellent types of the war-steamers, intermediate between the old two- 
and three-deckers and the sailless "ironclads" that followed, were those 
two actors in that most glorious sea-fight of the American Civil War — 
the Kcarsarge and Alabama. 

In this great fight, which took place a few miles off the harbor of Cher- 
bourg, France, one beautiful summer Sunday (June 19th) in 1864, much the 
same tactics prevailed as in any one of the earlier ocean duels. As the 
Alabama came on she began firing the two-hundred-pound pivot-rifle for- 
ward, which was her main gun, while the Kearsarge was yet a mile away. 
The latter waited a little before replying, but only a few moments elapsed 
before both were near enough and hard at it, each doing its best to get a 
position ahead of its antagonist for raking, — a disadvantage which the 
other steadily avoided ; and this caused them to follow one another about in 
advancing circles, of which seven were described before the end came. 

We have a story of the battle as seen from the deck of the Kcarsarge, 
written by her surgeon, who had little to do except observe the conflict. 

The Kearsarge gunners [he tells us] had been cautioned against firing without direct aim, 
and had been advised to point the heavy guns below rather than above the water-line, and to 
clear the deck of the enemy with the lighter ones. Though subjected to an incessant storm 
of shot and shell, they kept their stations and obeyed instructions. 

The effect upon the enemy was readily perceived, and nothing could restrain the enthusiasm 



WAR-SHIPS AND NAVAL BATTLES 137 

of our men. Cheer succeeded cheer ; caps were thrown in the air or overboard ; jackets were 
discarded; sanguine of victory, the men were shouting as each projectile took effect: "That is 
a good one ! " " Down, boys ! " " Give her another like the last ! ' : " Now we have her ! " 
and so on, cheering and shouting to the end. 

After exposure to an uninterrupted cannonade for eighteen minutes without casualties, a 
sixty-eight-pounder Blakely shell passed through the starboard bulwarks below the main rigging, 
exploded upon the quarterdeck, and wounded three of the crew of the after pivot-gun. With 
these exceptions, not an officer or man received serious injury. The three unfortunates were 
speedily taken below, and so quietly was the act done, that at the termination of the fight a 
large number of the men were unaware that any of their comrades were wounded. Two shots 
entered the ports occupied by the thirty-twos, where several men were stationed, one taking 
effect in the hammock-netting, the other going through the opposite port, yet none were hit. 
A shell exploded in the hammock-netting and set the ship on fire ; the alarm calling for fire- 
quarters was sounded, and men detailed for such an emergency put out the fire, while the rest 
stayed at the guns. 

The Kearsarge concentrated her fire and poured in the eleven-inch shells with deadly effect. 
One penetrated the coal-bunker of the Alabama, and a dense cloud of coal-dust arose. Others 
struck near the water-line between the main and mizzen masts, exploded within board, or passing 
through burst beyond. Crippled and torn, the Alabama moved less quickly and began to settle 
by the stem, yet did not slacken her fire, but returned successive broadsides without disastrous 
result to us. 

Captain Semmes witnessed the havoc made by the shells, especially by those of our after 
pivot-gun, and offered a reward for its silence. Soon his battery was turned upon this particular 
offending gun for the purpose of silencing it. It was in vain, for the work of destruction went 
on. We had completed the seventh rotation on the circular track and begun the eighth ; the 
Alabama, now settling, sought to escape by setting all available sail (fore-trysail and two jibs), 
left the circle, amid a shower of shot and shell, and headed for the French waters ; but to no 
purpose. In winding the Alabama presented the port battery with only two guns bearing, and 
showed gaping sides through which the water washed. The Kearsarge pursued, keeping on a 
line nearer the shore, and with a few well-directed shots hastened the sinking condition. Then 
the Alabama was at our mercy. Thus ended the fight after one hour and two minutes. 



One incident of this battle much talked of at the time, and given as an 
excuse for their defeat by the Confederates (though without good reason), 
was the fact that the waist of the Kearsarge, opposite the engines, was pro- 
tected by anchor-chains, hung in close festoons on the outside of the ship, 
and kept in place and concealed by a boxing of thin boards. This, how- 
ever, was not the first attempt at protecting ships by armor, which had now 
become necessary to meet successfully the better guns and projectiles that 
year by year were increased in penetrative power. New powders and explo- 
sives were constantly being invented also, each more effective than the pre- 
ceding; and as these were not only used in guns but applied to the filling 
of shells, these bursting missiles for a time almost displaced solid shot. 

Along with this the discovery and perfection of the Bessemer and other 
processes of making steel, and methods of adapting rifling to great cannon, 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



produced a rapid and varied increase in size and an improvement in quality 
in the guns supplied to ships as well as in those used upon shore. 

Against these new weapons the old " wooden walls " were of no avail. 
Oak and teak, however sound and thick, failed to turn aside the conical 

projectiles as they had the 
old round shot and shell. 
The ponderous missiles 
would crash clear through, 
smashing everything in 
their path, and sending 
showers of death-dealing- 
splinters right and left. 
The navy had to protect 
itself by a revival of the 
armor with which knights 
of the middle ages guarded 
against arrows and javelins 
and sword-points. By 
and by, when 




THE UNITED STATES FRIGATE "MERRI- 
MAC" BEFORE AND AFTER CONVER- 
SION INTO AN IRONCLAD. 

Compare with illustration on page 139. 



sWmi 



guns and bullets came, the knights thickened their armor in an attempt 
to resist these new missiles, until at last it reached a weight too great 
to be carried, and the whole cumbrous panoply had to be laid aside, and 
knightly tactics altogether changed. Many persons believe that this his- 
tory will be repeated in the case of the sea-warriors of the world, which, 
within the memory of many a grizzled admiral, have changed from buoyant 
and beautiful ships to grim and shapeless fortresses afloat. 

The Americans, fearless of sea-traditions, were the first to propose armor 
for ships, but the French first practically applied it, building several "float- 
ing batteries," covered with iron 4^4 inches thick, in 1855. The English 
copied them, in somewhat more ship-shape form ; and then the French 
began boldly to sheathe some of their frigates with iron plates and call 
them "ironclads." By this time iron hulls had begun to be used com- 
monly in the British merchant service, but of course the men-of-war's men, 
the slowest class of persons on earth to accept any change, insisted that 
iron would by no means do for war-ships. Nevertheless a few progressive 
spirits persuaded their high-mightinesses, the Lords of the Admiralty, to 
try an experiment in building one, and, in i860, the first iron war-ship was 



WAR-SHIPS AND NAVAL BATTLES 



139 



launched and named Warrior, while all the old salts wag-aed their heads 
and predicted the end of " Britannia rules the waves," until there was n't 
a really jolly tar to be found from Penolar Point to Pentland Firth. To a 
certain extent these hardy old growlers were right, though their idea of a 
remedy was wrong. It proved a failure to build old-style battle-ships of iron 
or even of steel, or to coat them all over with armor, even when greatly 
thickened. Not only were they slow and somewhat unmanageable, but by 
the time one of them had been built with thicker walls than its latest rival, 
somebody had invented artillery whose projectiles would penetrate it. 
Ships that are " ship-shape," that is, possess masts and sails, but are con- 
structed wholly of iron or steel, and more or less heavily armored, have sur- 
vived, and will always be a part of the world's navies, no doubt, but their 
uses will be subsidiary to heavy fighting ; and with the disappearance of the 
wooden sailing line-of-battle ship in the Crimean war and of the iron war- 
steamer a quarter of a century later, all traditions of the " old navy" were 
ended — traditions that went back to the days of Drake. 

But who could have foreseen that this swift and momentous upsetting 
should come about, not through the efforts of the great sea powers of Eu- 
rope, — the giants who had been struggling for the control of the ocean for 
three hundred years, — but from the brain and purse of landsmen in a coun- 
try of the New World not taken into account as a naval power at all. 

You need not be told that it was Ericsson's invention and Henry Grin- 
nell's building and Lieutenant Worden's courageous fighting of the little 
Monitor in Hampton Roads, 
on that fair March Sunday 
in 1862, that brought about 
this change. When her tur- 
ret — the "cheese-box on a 
raft" — successfully withstood 
the assault of that heavily 
armed floating battery, the 
Mcrrimac (or Virginia), all 
the war-ships of the world felt 
themselves beaten, too, and 
wise seamen saw that they 
must prepare to face a new foe. 

At once all maritime governments began to build fighting-vessels which 
were castles of steel afloat, and smaller ships for various services that more 
resembled a Nootka war-canoe in outline than one of the frigates that used 
to do their work. So shapeless were they that a new term had to be used, 




Propeller- Blower- Smoke- 
well, pipes. stacks. 



Pilot- Anchor- 
house, well. 



SIDE ELEVATION AND DECK-PLAN OF THE 
"MONITOR." • 



I40 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

and we began to call them cruisers. All war-ships, in fact, are now classified 
by their work, not by their shape or size or rig. 

First, fewest, and heaviest are the harbor-defense vessels — monitors 
and massively walled floating batteries, intended to remain in harbors, or 
close to the coast, as movable forts. 

Second, battle-ships — the strongest, most thickly armored, heavily 
armed style of ships that can be made, and still be able to go to sea ; but 
these are not expected to leave their home ports for a long time, nor to go 
to any great distance unless compelled to do so in actual war. 

Third, cruisers. These take the place of the old-fashioned lesser fight- 
ing-ships, the seventy-fours, frigates, corvettes, and sloops, and vary greatly 
in size, model, speed, and power of armament. 

Fourth, small, swift, strongly armed but lightly armored, torpedo-boat 
chasers, small gunboats for use in rivers and shallow coastal waters, des- 
patch-boats, dynamite-cruisers, such as our American Vesuvius, tow-boats, 
and similar minor craft — the run-abouts of the naval service. 

Fifth, torpedo-boats. 

The material of all these is steel. Wood is no longer permitted even 
in the fittings of their cabins, because wood will splinter and burn. 

The great hull of a modern battle-ship, as described by Lieutenant S. A. 
Staunton, U. S. N., which supports and carries the vast weights of ma- 
chinery, guns, and armor, aggregating perhaps more than ten thousand 
tons, is built of plates of rolled steel, varying from 1 }k inches thick at the 
keel to Y\ inch at the water-line. These are closely jointed and fitted, 
and bound together with straps, angle-irons, and brackets, so as to make a 
strong unyielding structure braced in all directions. Then, through the 
central part of the ship, at least, vertical plates are erected upon the frame 
and outside plating, which bear a second or inner bottom, thus forming the 
"double bottom" as high as the water-line, having the space between the 
inner and outer sheathing separated into a multitude of small water-tight 
cells, so that an injury to the outside hull would not cause the vessel to leak 
unless the inner bottom were also punctured. 

Throughout the whole length of the vessel, reaching from side to side 
and from the keel to the main deck, are many steel bulkheads, sufficiently 
strong to resist the pressure of the water, and communicating only by water- 
tight doors, so that even were an accident, such as a collision or running 
upon a rock, or an enemy's shell, to open a hole through both bottoms, the 
ship would still float, because the inflowing water would be confined to a 
single compartment, leaving the rest of the ship dry and buoyant. Nothing 
less than the blow of a ram, smashing through everything and throwing 



WAR-SHIPS AND NAVAL BATTLES 



141 



several compartments into one, would be likely to sink such a ship, and this 
is one reason why ramming has again become prominent in naval tactics. 

But while safety from sinking is thus reasonably assured, this is more 
a precaution of seaworthiness against the accidents of storms than to- 
ward injuries receivable in battle. Passenger and freight steamers now 




THE FIRST SEA-FIGHT OF MODERN WAR-SHIPS. 

The Peruvian turret-ship " Huascar " between the fire of the Chilean ironclads " Almirante Cochrane" 
and " Blanco Encalada," Octobers, 1879. 

have the double bottoms and water-tight compartments, and the best of 
these have arrangements for mounting light but powerful guns upon 
their decks, so that they may be utilized by the government in a war 
emergency as light cruisers, as armed transports, as swift scouts, or in 
other highly important ways ; they will then be coated with a light protec- 
tive armor, but will not be expected to engage in a contest with a real 
fighting-vessel. 

The idea of armor-plate is, as has been said, scarcely half a century old, 
and the moment it was put on (amid the jeers of the old line-of-battle tars, who 
thought they had done all that the dignity of the profession permitted when 



142 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



they arranged their rolled-up hammocks along the bulwarks to catch musket- 
balls, and spread nettings to prevent somewhat the flight of splinters) inge- 
nious men began to improve their powder and strengthen their guns to. 
overcome the new defenses. To meet these improvements armor has been 
increased and perfected, until now war-vessels are no longer "ships" in any 
proper sense of the word, but floating fortresses of steel, the names of whose 
defensive parts, even, have been borrowed from land fortifications, such as 
turret and barbette. 

A limit to this defensive strength is marked in two directions. First, 
by the size it is possible to make a vessel, and still keep her seaworthy 




THE UNITED STATES BATTLE-SHIP "MASSACHUSETTS." 



and manageable; and, second, by the weight of armor such a vessel can 
carry, in addition to the weight of the framework, machinery, guns, and other 
things necessary. These limits seemed to be reached some time ago in 
some of the monstrous battle-ships built in Europe, and when it was found 
that even while they were in construction rifled guns had been invented 
that would drive their projectiles through the thickest wall of wrought-iron 
or steel that these or any other vessels could carry, naval constructors began 
to despair of keeping ahead of the gun-makers, and there was even talk of 



WAR-SHIPS AND NAVAL BATTLES 1 43 

abandoning armor altogether, and fighting battles out with bared breasts as 
we used to do. 

The percentage of weight which may be allotted to armor in the design of a ship limits the 
area which can be wholly protected,-but often permits the partial protection of other areas of 
less importance to her vitality and destructive force. Motive power, steering-gear, and maga- 
zines stand first upon the list of those features demanding complete protection. . . . The heavy 
shells from an enemy's guns may do many other forms of injury besides sinking a vessel and dis- 
abling her crew. They may strike and disable her engines, or pierce her boilers, causing disas- 
trous explosions. They may injure her steering-gear, destroy the mechanism which controls her 
turrets and guns, or injure the guns themselves and their carriages. In every feature of offense 
which renders her a formidable and dangerous foe — her speed, her mobility, the fire of her 
guns — a man-of-war is dangerously vulnerable unless she be protected by armor, unless the 
enemy's shot be rejected by plates which it cannot penetrate. 

Then came an invention that put a new face upon the matter, — the 
surface-hardening of plates, composed of a mixture of nickel with steel, — 
which, from one of its perfectors, is known as " Harveyizing " it. Other 
processes also are known. This gave to the surface of the metal such a 
flinty hardness that the heaviest and most highly tempered steel projectiles 
would almost invariably break to pieces when they struck it — the same 
projectiles that were able to punch a hole clear through a target-plate of 
ordinary wrought-steel twenty-two inches thick ! 

Plates thus surface-hardened are now made in Europe, and as well, if 
not better, in the United States, where we have learned and taught the rest 
of the world how to make them by rolling — a much better, as well as 
cheaper, process than the former method of hammering them into shape. 

It was found that with these hard-surfaced plates much less thickness 
was required to contend successfully with the great guns opposed to them 
than had been the case before ; and the great saving of weight enabled a 
much larger extent of armor to be borne upon a ship than was formerly 
possible, so arranged as to protect all her hull and vital parts. 

Thus, in a typical modern battle-ship, say 360 feet long, 72 feet broad, 
and drawing 24 feet of water, having an armor of surface-hardened nickel- 
steel, this armor is thus disposed: amidships, and a quarter of her length 
behind the point of the prow, is built up a semicircular "barbette," or wall, 
of the thickest armor, behind which is a "turret," moving to the right or 
left through an arc equal to half the horizon, no higher than necessary to 
cover and work the guns, and having its motor mechanism fully protected 
by the barbette. This is the forward turret — a swinging fort, carrying 
with it, as it turns, two of the heaviest guns in the ship. 

Half-way from the center to the stern stands the after turret and its 










<; 



in 






p 






WAR-SHIPS AND NAVAL BATTLES 1 45 

barbette, similarly built of the strongest armor, — ten to twelve inches 
thick, — and sweeping with its guns half the horizon. 

From a point just in front of the forward barbette two walls of the heavi- 
est possible armor, reaching vertically from four and a half feet below the 
water-line (loaded) to three feet above it, extend diagonally backward to 
the sides of the ship, then continue along its side in a "belt" to points op- 
posite the after barbette, where they bend inward as before and meet just aft 
of the after barbette ; but hereafter the increased efficiency of armor, by fur- 
ther reducing its weight, will probably enable the armor-belts to be carried 
to the extreme ends of the ship, which otherwise can be so seriously dam- 
aged by an enemy as to interfere with the speed and control of a ship 
in action, even if it does not disable her. 

But while these upright walls will resist a direct shot, it is equally 
necessary to guard against a plunging fire, and therefore the space between 
the turrets, at least, must be roofed over with a steel deck, two or three 
inches thick, to deflect shot that come just over the top of the armor-belt. 

In addition to this, on each side of the vessel are erected one or two 
smaller turrets, carrying somewhat smaller guns than those of the forward 
and after turrets, and also protected by heavy barbettes which reach down 
to the armor-belt and thoroughly protect the turning mechanism, passage 
of ammunition, etc. These various upper parts are connected by defenses 
which may not resist the largest shells, but are safe against smaller shot. 

Now, what is the armament of this fortress which thus protects all the 
motive power and interior machinery of the ship, by which she can be made 
so terrible an engine of combative force ? Well, it is as different from the 
bronze "lon^-toms" and carronades of the old three-deckers, or even from 
ten-inch smooth-bore " Dahlgrens " of the days of our Civil War, as is the 
ship itself from old-time models. In place of broadside batteries of forty or 
fifty cannon hidden in clouds of smoke, there are now six or eight big rifles, 
from whose muzzles wreaths of thin gas only drift to leeward ; and, more 
striking still, in contrast, a ship is no longer comparatively helpless when 
headed or turned sternward to an enemy, — when the "raking," formerly 
so justly dreaded, would be received, — but is rather more able to do damage 
in that position than by a "broadside." 

The guns themselves are marvels of structure and power. All of those 
used in the United States navy are made by the government in the gun- 
shops at the Washington navy-yard, and are "built up." The methods 
and tools required for this are the invention of Americans, as well as the 
complicated arrangements for closing the breech, and the carriages and 
mechanism for overcoming the tremendous recoil and handling the ponder- 



146 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



ous ammunition ; the latter, often weighing hundreds of pounds, is handed 
up to the gunners from the magazines below by hoists worked by electricity. 

The history of the development of heavy ordnance, especially that ap-. 
plied to naval uses, is one of the most interesting chapters in mechanics ; 
and a surprising number of ways of making a ship's cannon have been 
tried and rejected. Out of this two things seem now to be settled: namely, 
that a gun composed of steel in separate parts welded together is best, and 
that the best missile to shoot from it is a conical shell, very hard and heavy, 
yet containing an explosive small in quantity but exceedingly powerful. 

Such guns are built up of a tube or "core" of steel of the required size, 
upon which is shrunk a jacket, covering the rear, or breech half of the core, 
outside of which are shrunk on several broad hoops. The cutting out of 
the bore to exactly the proper caliber and the plowing of the spiral riflings 




THE UNITED STATES CRUISER "BROOKLYN" (STERN VIEW). 

put the gun in readiness for its breech-closing and other attachments. This 
process requires several months, involves large capital and powerful 
machinery, and good results imply the very highest workmanship. 

Such are the guns of modern men-of-war; and a first-class battle-ship 
carries four twelve- or thirteen-inch rifles (that is, having a bore twelve or 
thirteen inches in diameter), several eight- or ten-inch rifles, and many 



WAR-SHIPS AND NAVAL BATTLES 



147 



smaller guns arranged to be fired with extraordinary speed, and hence called 
"rapid-fire" guns; while her upper works and " military tops" fairly bristle 
with fierce little six-, four-, and one-pounders, — revolving magazine rifles, 
capable of discharging rifle-balls as fast as a man can turn the crank. 




ON BOARD A BATTLE-SHIP GOING INTO ACTION. WORKING THE RAPID-FIRE GUNS. 



To give some idea of the size and power of one of the 13-inch guns, 
whose long muzzles, in pairs, project so far out of the turrets that hide their 
mountings and firing-crew, let me tell you that it is 40 feet long, more than 
4 feet in diameter, and weighs 60^2 tons. "It requires 550 pounds of 
powder to load it, and the projectile weighs half a ton. The muzzle-velocity 
of the projectile is 2100 feet per second, with the stated charge, and its 
energy is sufficient to send it through 26 inches of steel at a distance of 
600 yards. At an elevation of 40 degrees the range of the gun will be 
not far from 15 miles." 

In such a ship, deep down within the fortress is the massive and 
complicated machinery, steam and electric, upon which the life and activity 
of the whole structure depend. The power is generated in four enormous 



148 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

boilers, seventeen feet in diameter and twenty in length, their steel shells 
one and a half inches thick, built to carry a working-pressure of 160 pounds 
to the square inch. Each pair of these boilers, placed fore and aft and 
side by side, is installed in a separate compartment, with fire-rooms at the 
ends. Every boiler has four furnaces in each end, which give eight to each 
fire-room, or a total of thirty-two. The two boiler compartments are sep- 
arated by a water-tight bulkhead, and by a deep, broad coal-bunker. At 
the sides of the ship are also coal-bunkers, which supplement the heavy 
armor-belt by the protection of a mass of coal twelve feet in thickness — in 
itself a not inconsiderable earthwork, which might arrest the fragments of a 
bursting shell that had succeeded in piercing the armor. No casualty of 
naval combat can be worse than the penetration of high-pressure boilers by 
heavy shells. Their complete protection is an imperative condition, quite 
as important as the protection of the magazines. 

Such is a modern battle-ship — a "wonderful and complex instrument 
of warfare," as Lieutenant Staunton has expressed it. 

She is filled [he tells us] with powerful agencies, all obedient to the control of man — the 
creatures of his brain and the servants of his will. Steam in its simple application drives her 
main engines and many auxiliaries. Steam transformed into hydraulic power moves her steer- 
ing-gear and turns her turrets. Steam converted into electrical energy produces her incandescent 
and search-lights, works small motors in remote places, and fires her guns when desired. Every 
application of energy, every device of mechanism, finds its office somewhere in that vast hull, 
and the source of all the varied forms of power lies in the great boilers, far down below danger 
of shot and shell, under which grimy stokers are always shoveling coal. Decades of thought 
and study, experiment and failure, trial again with partial success, and repeated trials with 
complete success, have assigned to each agency its appropriate function, and perfected the 
mechanism through which its work is performed. 

These modern developments have added one entirely novel and tremen- 
dous adjunct to the fleet, in the torpedo-boat and its terrible weapon. These 
take the place to some extent of the fire-ship of a century ago, which was 
designed to injure the enemy not by silencing his guns or overcoming his 
gunners, but by insidiously destroying his ship itself. 

The torpedo is, in its simplest form, simply some arrangement of a power- 
ful explosive to be set off beneath or against the bottom of a ship, and 
shatter or sink it. The idea is as old as gunpowder, but it is only in recent 
times that it has been made effective, — how effective we do not yet know. 

Torpedoes are used in two ways : one is by fixing the torpedo beneath 
the water, either to be exploded by means of a percussion-cap when the 
ship runs against it, or from the shore by means of electricity. Such ar- 
rangements as this, called submarine mines, are regarded as a most impor- 



WAR-SHIPS AND NAVAL BATTLES 



149 



tant means of defending harbors against hostile attack. During our Civil 
War they were extensively used by the Confederates, and were sometimes 
successful, as when one destroyed the monitor Tecumsch in Mobile harbor, 
during Farragut's famous attack there in 1864. 

The former class, for which the word torpedoes is now reserved, 
includes explosive agents which are to be placed or sent against a ship's 




THE MONITOR "TECUMSEH" SUNK BY A TORPEDO AT MOBILE, i864. 



bottom at sea and exploded there. Various devices of that kind, also, have 
been used for a long time in naval warfare. The Confederates tried hard 
to destroy several Northern vessels in the blockading squadron by devising 
very small, half-submerged boats, towing torpedoes astern, or else projecting 
on a long spar from their bows ; and now and then they succeeded, as when 
one of the latter kind was made to sink the Honsatonic off Charleston. 

Then there have been invented, during the past fifty years, several 
cigar-shaped machines, which, by means of a chemical or compressed-air 
engine or clockwork, or some other application of power that might keep 
motive machinery within them going long enough, could be launched from 
shore or from another vessel and sent under water against a hostile ship. 
At first these were made to glide along just beneath the surface, carrying 
little flags that could be seen, and trailing two electric wires, enabling a 



150 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 




THE SEARCH-LIGHT REVEALING THE TORPEDO-BOAT. 



person, by means of 
electric currents, to 
direct their flight ; 
but latterly ingenuity 
has devised such an 
arrangement of rud- 
ders and self-acting 
balances within the 
torpedo's mechanism 
that it will continue 
perfectly straight upon 
the course it is aimed 
for, swerving neither 
right nor left, up nor 
down, and will explode 
the instant it touches 

an object hard enough to jar the delicate cap of fulminate in its snout. 

This latter kind, called the automobile (self- moving) torpedo, is now almost 

exclusively used, and some modification of the Whitehead is most popular. 

It is cigar-shaped, and about 

twelve feet in length ; the forward 

third is filled with o-un-cotton — 

in quantity sufficiently powerful, 

if accurately applied, to ruin al- 
most instantly the greatest bat- 
tle-ship afloat. 

All large war- ships are now 

fitted with tubes, opening near 

the water-line in various parts 

of the hull, which form gun-like 

exits for these terrible weapons, 

which are set in motion by a puff 

of gunpowder ; but in addition to 

this every maritime government 

now has a number (Great Britain 

has more than 250) of small, swift 

steamers designed wholly for this 

purpose and called torpedo-boats. 

Most of them are a hundred feet 

A SELF-MOVING TORPEDO ON ITS WAY 

or so in length, and intended to to attack a man-of-war. 




WAR-SHIPS AND NAVAL BATTLES 



151 



accompany the fleet wherever it goes and in all weathers ; but some are so 
small that they may be carried on the deck of a big cruiser. 

All are made long, low, and narrow, and the speed of many of them 
exceeds thirty miles an hour. There is almost nothing to catch the wind 
or show above deck except a pair of short, flattened smoke-stacks, one 
behind the other ; and the steersman stands, with only his head and 
shoulders visible, in a little box with windows that serves the purpose of a 




A TORPEDO-BOAT AT FULL SPEED. 



wheel-house. A mere wire railing saves the crew from sliding off the deck, 
and in action everybody stays below. No weight is carried that can be 
avoided, and the engines, taking steam from two boilers, are as powerful 
as can be packed into the space at command. Usually only coal enough 
for a few hours' steaming is carried, and every bushel of it is carefully 
selected as to quality, and is so treated and intelligently fed to the furnaces 
as to make the hottest possible fire, although never a spark must escape 
from the smoke-stack to betray the vessel in the darkness. 

Next to speed the most important quality is ability to turn quickly, upon 
which might often depend the safety of the audacious little craft. 

Torpedo-boats, however, are designed for a wider service than simply to 



15- 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



carry and discharge the frightful weapon from which they take their name. 
They are to the navy what scouts and skirmishers are to a land army. 
They form the cavalry of the sea, of which the cruisers are the infantry, 
and the battle-ships and monitors the artillery arm. They must spy out 
the position of the enemy's fleet, hover about his flanks or haunt his 
anchorage to ascertain what he is about and what he means to do next. 
They must act as the pickets of their own fleet, patrolling the neighbor- 
hood, or waiting and watching, concealed among islands or in inlets and 
river-mouths, ready to hasten away to the admiral with warning of any 
movement of the adversary. 

It is not their business to fight (except rarely, in the one particular way), 
but rather to pry and sneak and run, for the benefit of the fleet they serve. 

But to insure all these fine 
results, both officers and men 
must be taught the art. Con- 
stant instruction and drilling 
are necessary, and in each navy 
a regular school of torpedo- 
practice is maintained, where 
the subject is studied in every 
way. In the United States 
such a school is kept at the 
Newport (R. I.) Torpedo Sta- 
tion, where the torpedoes them- 
selves are fitted for use and sup- 
plied to the ships (the loaded war-heads are kept separately in the ship's maga- 
zine), and where one or more torpedo-boats are reserved for drilling purposes. 
But a worse and more insidious foe than even these sneaking, hiding, 
surface torpedo-boats threatens us in the submarine torpedo-boat, which 
inventors have been experimenting with since naval warfare first began. 
It is said that twenty-five hundred years ago divers were lowered into the 
water in a simply constructed air-box, to perforate the wooden bottom of 
an adversary's war-galley and sink it. Again, in our Revolutionary War, a 
tiny walnut-shaped boat was made by an American, which was actually 
tried. It would hold one man, and air enough for him to breathe for half an 
hour. He would close the hatch, let in enough water to sink him a little 
way, and then scull himself along by means of a screw-bladed stern-oar 
until he got underneath the keel of an anchored vessel, to which, by ingenious 
means, he would attach a can of gunpowder to be fired by clockwork, giving 
him time to get away. It was actually tried and nearly succeeded. Robert 




ONE FORM OF SUBMARINE TORPEDO-BOAT. 



154 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 




\ 



Fulton, who made the first success of the steamboat, 
tried for years to contrive a submarine boat that 
i would work, and succeeded so far as to scare Brit- 
ish blockaders in 1812 very badly indeed; and the 
Confederates repeated the scare when the North 
was blockading their ports in the Civil War. 
The great advantage of a submarine boat is, of 
course, its invisibility, and its safety from shot even if 
discovered ; but \ the difficulties of progress and control as to depth 
and direction under \ water, and at the same time effective ' appliance 
of the explosive and \ safe retreat, are so many that they have as yet 
been only partly over- \ come. If the thing is ever accomplished, 
naval warfare will be de- \ moralized until some adequate means be 
found to combat this unseen, \ destroying agency. 

submarine attacks would probably be 

inhuman as its use seems, is slowly but 

x the weapons of war. The United 



The principal agent in 
some form of dynamite, which, 
surely taking its place among 
States has one vessel primaril) 
hurling it in the form of shells. 
Vesuvius, and is a small, swift ves- 
ward through her forward deck, as 

These tubes are the muzzles of oreat 
sends darts loaded with dynamite 
ship or fort. It would not be safe, to 
such bombs with gunpowder; and 
and engines in her interior compress 
acquired an expansive force suffi- 
purpose. When one of the darts 
laid in the breech of the tube, down 
the deck, and suitably closed in, a valve 
is opened, the compressed air acts like 
burning powder, and away goes the 
dart, in a graceful curve to its target. In 
this case, of course, it is the vessel rather 
than the immovable gun that is aimed, and 
good marksmanship depends upon accu- 
rate calculation of distance ; but remarkable 
shooting has been done. This system has 
never yet been tried in actual warfare, and may 
prove valuable chiefly in clearing harbors of mines 



designed to employ dynamite, by 
\ Thisvolcanic craft is suitably named 
sel having long tubes slanting up- 
shown in the illustration, 
air-guns, through which she 
to fall upon a hostile 
say the least, to fire 
therefore pumps 
air until it has 
cient for the 
been 
eneath 




CHAPTER VII 



THE MERCHANTS OF THE SEA 




HE history of shipping in an earlier chapter will also answer 
as a history of early international commerce. It began with 
the Egyptians and Phenicians, and was confined to their 
parts of the Mediterranean until after the middle ages, when 
it moved steadily to the western borders of Europe. 

How great, rich, and influential were Tyre and its people we have al- 
ready seen. A thousand years before the Christian era they controlled the 
commerce of the ancient world by reason of their wisdom as traders and 
their skill and energy as navigators and seamen. Turn to the twenty- 
seventh chapter of Ezekiel, and see how the Phenician metropolis was re- 
garded, even in the time of that prophet, six hundred years before Christ. 
These Syrians had gradually extended their commerce until it took in the 
whole known world ; and by their caravans to and from the interior of 
Arabia, Persia, India, and the Soudan, by their trains (perhaps of pack- 
horses) across Europe, by their marine expeditions to the Nile, — which they 
forced open to trade, for ancient Egypt was much like China in its exclu- 
siveness, — and by their ships to all the Mediterranean ports, and up and 
down the Atlantic coast, they gathered and exchanged in the bazaars of 
Tyre and Sidon the products, manufactures, and luxuries of every country 
that had anything to sell. To the Phenicians, indeed, was ascribed, by the 
Latin and Greek writers of a few centuries later, the invention of naviga- 
tion ; and even when Phenicia had become of little account as a nation, its 
conquerors noted with admiration the skill of the men of that coast in sea- 
manship. "They steered by the pole-star, which the Greeks therefore 
called the Phenician star ; and all their vessels, from the common round 
gaulos to the great Tarshish ships, — the East-Indiamen, so to speak, of the 
ancient world, — had a speed which the Greeks never rivaled." 

Later, in the days of the Roman supremacy, the trading-ships were as 
important to the country as its soldiers, for nearly every free man was in 



156 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

the army, and the slaves made poor farmers. A large part of the grain, 
as well as cattle, to supply the wants of the people, had to be brought from 
Egypt, which was pretty sure to have "corn," as the Bible calls it, when the 
rest of the world was suffering from short crops. Egypt supplied grain to 
Rome during the second Punic war, thus enabling- her to resist the invasion 
of Carthage, and it is possible that Rome's later political alliance with 
Egypt was largely due to her interest in Egyptian crops. Large fleets of 
grain-ships, convoyed by armed vessels, were continually passing between 
the African coast and the Tiber, and so many were the risks they ran of 
wreck or capture, that the arrival of a flotilla with its precious freight of food 
was always a cause of rejoicing, at any rate, among the poor. 

These merchant ships of classical times were broader and heavier than the 
war-galleys, and although they carried a few oars to help themselves in a 
difficulty, they ordinarily moved by means of sails, probably lugs. One of 
the grain-ships plying between Egypt and Italy about 150 a. d., according 
to Lucian, was one hundred and eighty feet long, slightly more than one 
fourth as broad, and forty-three and a half feet deep inside, — more like a 
barge than a " ship." The largest used in this trade would carry about two 
hundred and fifty tons. The transports that accompanied one of Justinian's 
fleets, a. d. 533, are stated to have carried one hundred and sixty to two 
hundred tons of supplies each. 

These Roman vessels were made of pine, and were coated with a com- 
position of tar and wax, then painted, often with elaborate decorations in 
bright colors, with pigments mixed with melted wax. Now and then one 
was built of truly vast proportions, as that one which brought from Egypt 
to Rome the first of the stolen obelisks. 

With that grand awakening of interest in education, industry, and dis- 
covery which took place in the fourteenth century, the city of Venice gained 
the lead in power, and her merchants became the most enterprising and 
wealthy. It was the expansion of commerce that urged the explorations 
that marked the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, for by this time Venice 
had her banks — the first in the world to approach the character of modern 
banks — and her exchange on the famous Rialto bridge ; Genoa was in 
close rivalry ; Spain was gathering immense quantities of gold in South 
America ; and England was coming to the front as a maritime power. 
The trade with Cathay — as India, China, and the Oriental islands were 
called collectively — was chiefly by caravans across the Persian deserts, and 
Spain, England, and Holland had small shares in it, since the only water- 
route known was through the Mediterranean and Red seas, where, be- 
tween the perils of the ocean, the extortionate charges and stealings of 



THE MERCHANTS OF THE SEA 



157 






the Arabs (who carried the cargoes from vessel to vessel across the 
Isthmus of Suez), and the risk of capture by Algerian pirates, there was 
little chance left for profit to either merchants or ship-owners. 

To western Europe, then, Vasco de Gama's discovery of the route 
around the Cape of Good Hope was a long advantage, and England and 
Holland at least were quick to 
seize it. The great "East In- 
dia Companies " of the Dutch 
and English were formed by 
a group of powerful merchants 
in London and in Amsterdam, 
who were given vast privileges 
by their governments in re- 
spect to trading in the East. 
The Dutch company was not 
founded until 1602, two years 
after the English company, but 
it soon became the more prom- 
inent of the two, and was one 
of the principal means by 
which the Netherlands se- 
cured the preponderance of 
the carrying trade of the 
world, bringing to her ports, 
by the middle of the seven- 
teenth century, almost all the t ^<Sf%Mi. 



commerce previously enjoyed W v » ff; 

by Cadiz, Lisbon, and Ant- \|-\ I: 

werp, and making very serious 

inroads upon that of London 

and Bristol. The Dutch East 

India ships, copied from the 

Genoese carracks, were the biggest merchant vessels then afloat, well able 

to cope with many of the war-ships ; and two hundred of them were at this 

time engaged in the Asiatic trade alone. 

It was in aid of the English rival company not only, but as an attempt 
to save and revive the commercial position of England generally, that 
Cromwell's "navigation laws" were enacted, prohibiting the carriage of 
goods to or from British shores except in ships owned and manned by 
Englishmen, — laws that were aimed directly at the Dutch, and led to the 




A CAPTAIN IN THE MERCHANT MARINE. 



158 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 




A CLIPPER ESCAPING FROM THE "ALABAMA.' 



long wars of the latter half of the seventeenth century. These were called 
wars for the supremacy of the sea, but actually they were a prolonged strug- 
gle for the biggest share of the world's trade, which is the only real value 



THE MERCHANTS OF THE SEA 1 59 

of the "supremacy of the sea." It is a saying that "trade follows the flag," 
and so it does; but at the beginning the flag goes were the trade is to be had. 

These companies were so mixed up in the politics of their respective 
governments that it would be a long task, although entertaining, to trace 
their growth, which is really that of western civilization in the East. 
They equipped fleets of merchant and war vessels, established forts, car- 
ried on small wars along the Oriental coasts, and were really little king- 
doms within kingdoms, because of their wide monopoly, enormous Avealth, 
and the national importance of all their enterprises. The final result was 
that, as Great Britain finally overcame the Dutch and French at home, so her 
East India Company ousted them from India; but it was not until 1858 that 
old "John Company," which had come to be regarded by the natives of 
India as the government itself, was dissolved, and resigned its territories to 
the crown and a system of trade open to all the world. 

Those were slow and costly times compared with the present, though 
seeming to us full of a romance impossible now. A voyage around the 
world occupied three years, and to go from London to Calcutta and back took 
from New Year's to Christmas under the most favorable circumstances. 
Another important change, too, has gradually come about. Formerly, the 
vessels were owned almost entirely by the merchants themselves, or by a 
company of them ; they paid all a ship's expenses, and put into her a cargo 
of their own wares. They would send to China, for instance, cotton goods, 
household furniture, hatchets, tools, cutlery and other hardware, farming 
implements, and fancy goods of all sorts. In return the vessels would bring 
silks, tea, and porcelain, which would go into the owners' warehouses and 
be sold in their own shops. Shipper, importer, and merchant were all one. 

Now this is changed. The importers and merchants of London, Ham- 
burg, and New York are not often those who own vessels and bring their 
own goods. Instead of this they have agents, who live permanently in each 
of the foreign ports, where they buy the merchandise they want and hire 
a vessel, or the needed space in a vessel, belonging to somebody else to 
bring them home. By the old way, the nation which had anything to sell 
carried it to the nation that would buy it, and brought back the best thing it 
could get in exchange ; now the merchants go to various parts of the world, 
buy their cargoes, and order them sent home, in substantially the same way 
as you go a-shopping in town. 

This has brought out a new department of sea-labor, unknown, as a 
class, a century ago — the business of carrying goods which the owners of 
the vessels have no property in. In London, New York, Hamburg, and all 
other seaboard cities of this and other countries, the great majority of the 



i6o 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



shipping is owned, not by the merchants of the city, but by "transportation 
companies," who agree to carry cargoes at a certain rate. 

Merchant vessels may be divided into three classes, of which the first 
includes steamships and sailing-vessels planned primarily for freight trans- 




THE SALOON OF A SAILING PACKET-SHIP, ABOUT 1840. 



portation, which run back and forth between certain ports, and so constitute 
" lines " for freight. Such lines exist along even the remotest coasts, so that 
goods may be shipped directly, or by a single transfer, from any given sea- 
port to almost any other in the world. Some of these lines, sailing be- 
tween certain ports, are devoted to particular uses, such as those of oil- 
steamers and cattle-steamers. The oil-steamers run between America and 
Europe with American petroleum, and in the Black Sea and the Mediter- 
ranean with oil from Russia ; the entire holds are divided into vast iron 
tanks for this liquid, which is poured into and pumped out of them as into 
and out of a great barrel. The cattle-steamers are specially arranged for 
the transportation of live stock, but one line, running between America and 
England, also carries passengers at a cheap rate. The second class of ves- 
sels consists of those which make the transportation of passengers their first 
object, loading their holds with first-class freight, for which high rates are 



THE MERCHANTS OF THE SEA 



161 



paid in consideration of its swift delivery. The third class includes what are 
known as "tramp" steamers, which run irregularly, as the old sailing- 
vessels used to do, picking up cargoes wherever they find them and carry- 
ing them to any port. They are often of great size and power, but being 
under less close supervision are often less careful as to the safety of crews 
and cargoes, and are sometimes unseaworthy. They are always read)- to 
answer any sudden demand for ships, their owners keeping watch of the 
chances and telegraphing to their captains where to go for their next car- 
goes. Without the submarine telegraph these tramp steamers could 
scarcely compete with the regular lines ; but, besides the great transoceanic 
cables, all the sea-coasts are now festooned with electric cables, which have fre- 
quent stations and connect the important ports of America and Europe with 
those of Africa, Persia, India, the Spice Islands, Australia, and New Zea- 
land, and there is now a plan to run a cable across the Pacific between 
America and New Zealand, by way of the Sandwich Islands, Samoa, and Fiji. 




A CORNER IN THE SALOON OF A MODERN STEAMSHIP. 



The passenger-ship is a distinctly modern feature of marine carriage. In 
former days the few persons who were obliged to cross the seas on business 
errands, and the fewer who went abroad for health or pleasure or the love 
of travel, had to accept such rough accommodations as the ordinary mer- 
chant ships afforded. But as soon as the East and West Indies were added 
to the map of the world, and colonies of Europeans began to settle on dis- 



l62 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

tant coasts and islands, the amount of travel justified owners of vessels 
in enlarging cabins and providing comforts likely to induce patronage of 
their lines. Even two hundred and twenty-five years ago the voyage be- 
tween India and England around the Cape of Good Hope, though it became 
somewhat tedious, because it lasted six or seven months, was by no means 
a miserable experience in a well-found ship. Thus Dr. John Fryer has 
recorded of such a sea-journey in 1682 that "it passed away merrily with 
good wine and no bad musick ; but the life of all good company, and an 
honest commander, who fed us with fresh provisions of turkies, geese, ducks, 
hens, sucking-pigs, sheep, goats, etc." 

A century later, when England had come firmly into possession of India, 
and thousands of her officers, troops, and traders, with their families, were 
colonizing her ports, there were demanded the largest and finest ships that 
could be built, combining accommodations ior many passengers with great 
cargo capacity. Such were the great East Indiamen ; and in those leisurely 
days a trip half-way round the world on one of these roomy old vessels was 
a continuous pleasure to almost every one that undertook it. 

The ship was a bit of Old England afloat, where the passenger rented for so many months 
a well-lighted, roomy, unfurnished apartment, which, according to his taste and means, he fitted 
up for the voyage with numberless comforts and sea stores that none but a yachtsman would 
think of cumbering himself with at sea to-day ; and, reading narratives of the old long sea-voy- 
ages, one is constantly coming across expressions of regret by passengers when they " took 
leave of the good ship that for so many months had been their floating home." These fine old 
passenger sailing-ships were, like a man-of-war, entirely dismantled at the end of each homeward 
voyage, and underwent a complete overhaul and refit before starting out again on an outward 
one. Passengers usually sold their state-room furniture by auction on board the ship on her 
arrival in port. 

Such a ship, the Atlantic packets, and even men-of-war bound on a long 
blockading cruise, did not hesitate to stow aboard all the live stock that room 
could be found for, sometimes by comical devices. In that book of charming 
reminiscences of ways and means afloat before the days of quick steam tran- 
sit, "Old Sea Wings," Mr. Leslie has a chapter which he calls "The Old 
Ship-Farm," where one may learn curious particulars of this matter. 

The man in charge of this part of the stores was the ship's butcher, and he had as " mate," 
or assistant, a youth of all work known to all sailors as " Jemmy Ducks." Their barn, or 
storehouse, was especially the great long-boat, which often looked more like a model of Noah's 
ark than a craft serviceable in case of shipwreck. 

Always securely stowed amidships, well lashed down and housed over, the boat, as she lay 
upon the ship's deck, was full of live provender, being divided, as to her lower hold, into pens 
for sheep and pigs, while upon the first floor, or main deck, quacked ducks and geese, and above 



THE MERCHANTS OF THE SEA 1 63 

them (literally in the cock-loft) were coops for another kind of poultry. This great central depot 
was closely surrounded by other small farm-buildings, the most important being the cow- 
house, where, after a short run ashore on the marshes at the end of each voyage, a well-sea- 
soned animal of the snug Alderney breed chewed the cud in sweet content. In fact, when, 
in the old days, a passenger-ship began her voyage, the hull of her clumsy long-boat was nearly 
hidden by the number of temporary pens and sheds required to house the live stock for the sup- 
ply of her cabin table ; and with its many farm-yard and homelike sounds a ship was, even then, 
more like a small bit of the world afloat than it is now. 



There was always regular traffic between America and Europe, espe- 
cially with Great Britain, and the rapid growth of emigration to the United 
States and Canada made it profitable, early in this century, to put on fast- 
sailing packet-ships, making voyages, at intervals of a month, between Lon- 
don and New York. By 1840 a man might find a large, well-ordered ship 
departing every week or so for the transatlantic passage, which usually re- 
quired less than a month going east, but might be two weeks longer coming 
west. Their cabins were as comfortable and perhaps more homelike than 
any seen now, and quite as pretty, with their white and gold paint, cut-glass 
door and locker knobs, damask hangings, dimity bed-curtains, and other 
old-fashioned niceties ; and the fare was abundant and varied, as it ought to 
be in a neat ship with a small dairy aboard, and perhaps a green-salad gar- 
den planted in the jolly-boat. None of these packets were more popular 
than those of the well-remembered Black Ball Line. 

The steerage passengers were not so well off then, though they seemed 
to stand the voyage quite as well as nowadays. The fare was twenty-five 
dollars, and the passenger found himself " in everything but fire and 
water." " Steerage passengers then had to cook their own victuals, 
weather permitting, at an open galley-fire on the waist-deck ; . . . but 
in anything like rough weather, all steerage passengers had either to 
run the chance of getting constantly wet with salt water or keep below." 
The 'tween-decks space allotted to them was almost completely filled by 
rows of bunks, built in each port by the ship's carpenter, in three tiers, 
one above the other, though the ceiling was scarcely seven feet from 
the floor ; and when in a stormy time the hatches were closed the only 
way the crowd could find room was by most of it stowing itself away 
in the bunks, while a few tried to sit or lie on the luggage piled in 
the narrow aisles. The only light was that of a few candle or whale- 
oil lanterns, and in a very bad storm everybody came near smothering, 
for then it was impossible to ventilate the steerage properly without 
flooding it. Considering that all the provisions for the steerage people 
were kept in this crowded, damp, and fearfully close room, it is marvel- 



THE MERCHANTS OF THE SEA 1 65 

ous that a pestilence did not break out during every voyage, but, in fact, 
sickness was rare. 

The introduction of steam into oceanic navigation was experimented 
with as soon as river steamboats were successfully built. The first ves- 
sel to go across the ocean by the aid of a steam-engine is said to 
have been the Savannah. This vessel, built in Savannah, Ga., and hav- 
ing a steam-engine and paddle-wheels, certainly crossed to Liverpool in 
1 8 19; but it is asserted that she sailed all the way, using her steam very 
little, if at all, although making the trip in twenty-two days. In 1825 the 
English steamer Enterprise went from London to Calcutta ; but it was 
not until some years later that ocean navigation by steam became successful 
in the beginning of operations by the Cunard Company in 1833. 

These first steamers were side-wheelers, and their huo-e boilers and 
simple engines consumed so much fuel that the space taken up by the coal, 
added to that devoted to passengers, left little room tor cargo. Moreover, 
their speed was less, often, than that of the "clippers," so that for some 
time the sailing-packets maintained their competition. The adoption of the 
screw propeller, in place of the costly and cumbersome side-paddles, and 
the perfection of the compound marine engine, which effected a great 
saving in fuel, soon established the superiority of steam navigation for 
passenger service, fast freights, and service in war, — yet even these im- 
provements were not fairly brought about until the first half of the present 
century had gone ; and sails are not yet abandoned, not only because they 
steady a vessel in a gale, and may help her decidedly when the wind is fair, 
but may save her altogether in case of the disabling of her machinery. 

Great modifications and improvements on old models have grown out of the employment 
of steam and the screw, and human invention has been taxed to the uttermost to combine 
economy of space and expense with the various needs of different climes, or special cargoes, or 
the demands of a traveling public that is growing more fastidious every day. The most obvious 
changes in naval construction have been in the greatly elongated hull, the enormous dimensions 
aimed at, and the all but universal employment of iron. When the first steamship crossed the ocean 
the proportions of ships averaged three to five beams in length. . . . But it was discovered that 
with. a given power and depth and beam the length could be increased without materially affect- 
ing the speed, thus adding to the carrying capacity of steam. Great length to beam, however, 
does not necessarily imply great speed ; the speed of beamy vessels has too often been demon- 
strated. Fineness of lines is equally essentia], together with the proper distribution of weights, 
and the like. The great average speed exhibited by the modern steamship is due in large 
part to the momentum of such a vast weight, which, once started, has a tremendous force. 

Long after the transatlantic steamships were regularly running, sixteen or 
seventeen days was considered a good passage between New York and Liv- 
erpool. Then the Inman and White Star lines began to see the importance 



1 66 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



of faster speed, and their rivalry had cut this estimate in two by 1870, and 
ten years later the Guion Line's Arizona and other crack boats took a full 
day off that. Since then there has been a steady improvement in speed, as 
is shown by the table below ; and this seems to have followed proportion- 
ately the steady increase in length. The ships of 1850 never reached 300 
feet in length, and few were over 2300 tons in burden measurement. By 
1880 almost all the first-class " liners " of the world exceeded 450 feet, and 
some soon approached 600, as the City of Rome (586 feet, 8826 tons), and sev- 
eral of the famous Hamburg liners, White Stars, and Cunarders nearly 
equaled her in dimensions {Paris and New York, 580 feet each ; Teutonic 
and Majestic, 582 feet) ; while some of the more recent boats are even 
longer, as Campania and Lucania, 620 feet, and the gigantic Kaiser Wil- 
helm der Grosse, 648 feet. Two other ships, now planned, will considerably 
exceed this length. The total number of transatlantic passenger-steamships 
regularly sailing from New York alone is now between 90 and 100, belong- 
ing to 14 different lines. The table of speed-records between New York and 
Queenstown, since the time was reduced to less than six days, is as follows : 



Year. 
1882 
1891 
1891 
1892 

1893 
1894 

1894 



Steamer. Line. 

. Alaska Guion . . 

. Majestic White Star 

. Teutonic White Star 

. Paris American 

. Campania .... Cunard . 

. Lucania Cunard . 

. Lucania Cunard . 



Direction. Date. 

Eastward . . May 30 to June 6 



Westward 
Westward 



Aug. 13-19 
Aug. 14-19 



Westward 
Eastward 



Sept. 8-14 
Oct. 21-26 





Time. 




Days. 


Hours 


Mi 


6 


2 





S 


18 


8 


5 


16 


3 1 


5 


14 


24 


S 


12 


7 


5 


8 


38 


5 


7 


-3 



The approximate distance between Sandy Hook (light-ship), New York, and Queenstown 
(Roche's Point) is 2800 miles. The fastest day's run on record, however, was made by the 
Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, of the Nord Deutscher Lloyds Line, averaging 22.35 knots (or 
nautical miles, of 6080 feet each) per hour, equal to about 253^ land miles. From Sandy Hook 
to Queenstown deduct 4 hours 22 minutes for difference in time. Queenstown to Sandy Hook 
add 4 hours 22 minutes for difference in time. 



This eager rivalry in respect to speed, which insures not only a larger 
and more influential passenger service, but increased business in fast freight 
and in the carriage of mail — both highly remunerative — is only one fea- 
ture of the sharp competition between these ocean carriers as to which shall 
offer the greatest advantages, and this is of benefit to the public, though it 
has not greatly cheapened fares. 

Men travel far more now than they were wont in the time of "good 
Oueen Bess," or even of our own grandfathers, and the few travelers for 




EMIGRANT PASSENGERS EMBARKING UPON A TRANSATLANTIC "LINER." 



1 68 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

pleasure of those days would scarcely believe their eyes if they could look 
into the floating palaces — almost cities — in which we brave old ocean now. 
A ship of one of the better passenger lines is a little world in itself, contain-, 
ing almost all the appliances of the. best modern hotels on shore, and reduc- 
ing the inevitable inconveniences of life on shipboard by clever devices of 
every sort. In the one matter of ventilation the ingenuity of the builders is 
particularly taxed. Money is spent lavishly in the finishing and furnishing 
of these great ships, not to mention the expense of running them, which 
sometimes amounts in cost of fuel, food, and wages to $5000 a day. 

The steamship lines between New York and Great Britain do not steer 
straight across the Atlantic, but on their way to this country keep well to 
the northward, so as to get to the west of the Gulf Stream, and into the 
favorable current flowing south from Baffin's Bay ; then they skirt New- 
foundland, Nova Scotia, and Cape Cod. Going east, however, the steam- 
ers — and sailing-vessels too — keep farther south, and work along with the 
Gulf Stream as far as they can. From Europe to South America, or 
through the Straits of Magellan on their way to the South Sea islands or 
Australia (though this route is not often taken), or to the Pacific coast of 
the Americas, vessels keep close down the African coast, and then steer 
straight ahead from Guinea to Brazil, and on down the American coast. 
(Put a map before you and you will understand these courses better.) 
Sailing-vessels to Europe or the United States from Cape Horn, however, 
would swing- far out into the South Atlantic to avoid heading against the 
southward coast-current and to get the benefit of the southwest trade-wind 
and the equatorial currents. Between New York and the Cape of Good 
Hope the track is nearly straight. 

In the Pacific, the steamer-route between San Francisco or Vancouver 
and China and Japan, instead of being as direct as a parallel of latitude, 
takes a southerly course when bound west, and a northerly course when 
bound east, the exact lines varying with the seasons as the prevailing winds 
and currents change. What these winds and currents are is explained in 
another chapter ; but it is interesting to note that there is a difference of 
many miles in the ordinary westerly and easterly courses, the latter being 
much the shorter, although the vessels of the Canadian Pacific Line often 
sail so far north with the Japan warm current as to sight the Aleutian 
Islands. Sailing-vessels, moreover, curve so much farther south than 
steamers in going west from San Francisco, in order to take advantage of 
the equatorial current and the trade-winds, that the space is a thousand 
miles north and south between ships outward bound and those coming 
home. Between California and Honolulu a steamer takes a bee-line, but 



THE MERCHANTS OF THE SEA 



169 




ssfSafe 




A "WHALEBACK" FREIGHT STEAMER, ALSO ADAPTED TO PASSENGER SERVICE. 



sailing-vessels find it best to make detours. In summer, when outward 
bound, this amounts to steering straight northward until under latitude forty 
degrees, before turning westward, making an angular course that looks 
very unnecessary to a landsman. 

I have said that the finding of a sea-route to the East around the Cape 
of Good Hope was a great boon to western Europe, and advanced com- 
merce. It remained so until within the last seventy-five years. Lately, 
the corsairs being out of the way, and safety guaranteed in Egypt, mer- 
chants and sailors both began to wish they had a shorter route between 
England and India. Then, with immense labor and sacrifice, the canal was 
cut across the Isthmus of Suez, and commerce returned to its ancient chan- 
nel through the Red Sea, saving thousands of miles of weary distance. 

From the end of the Red Sea at Aden, the tracks of steamers both 
ways are straight courses to Bombay or Ceylon, and thence right up to 
Calcutta, across to Singapore, or down to Australia. Except East Afri- 
can coast lines, few steamers go around the Cape of Good Hope from Eng- 
land, excepting one line to South Australia, which steers straight eastward 
all the way from Cape Town to Adelaide, 6125 miles. But the Indian 
Ocean is so situated under the equator, is so filled with prevailing winds 



170 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



and currents and counter currents, that sailing-vessels must take very 
roundabout courses there, and can by no means steer the same track at all 
seasons of the year. These voyages from New York and London to the 
East are the longest regular sea-roads. A short table of distances between 
well-known ports along regular steamer-routes will be of interest; and by 
reversing them, or adding them together, the sailing distance between 
almost any two ports on the globe may be calculated. 



Acapulco to San Francisco 

Aden to Bombay 

Aden to Colombo (Ceylon) 

Aden to Zanzibar 

Auckland to Honolulu 

Auckland to Suva (Fiji) 

Cadiz to Teneriffe (Canaries) 

Cape Horn to Rio de Janeiro .... 
Cape Town to Plymouth (Eng.) . . . 

Cork to St. John's (N. F.) 

Ceylon to West Australia 

Glasgow to New York 

Havre to Martinique 

Havre to New York 

Hobart (Tas.) to Invercargill (N. Z.) 

Hong Kong to Manila 

Hong Kong to Shanghai 

Hong Kong to Yokohama 

Leith (Scot.) to Iceland 

Lisbon via Dakar (W. Af.) to Pernambuco 
Lisbon to Cape Verd Islands ... 

Liverpool to Barbadoes 

Lisbon to Para 

Liverpool to Lisbon ........ 

Liverpool to Madeira 

Liverpool to New Orleans 



1,850 Liverpool to New York ....... 3,057 

r,635 Liverpool to Para 4,oio 

2,100 Liverpool to Quebec 25634 

1,770 Marseilles to Algiers • 410 

3,915 Montevideo to Magellan Strait .... 1,070 

1,140 New Orleans to Havana 570 

698 New York to Colon 1,980 

2,350 New York to San Francisco, about . . 17,000 

6,016 New York, via St. Thomas, to Para . . 3,130 

1,730 Panama to San Francisco 3,260 

3,305 Porto Rico (San Juan) to Havana . . 1,030 

2,790 Rio de Janeiro to Plymouth 4,941 

3,560 San Francisco to Honolulu 2,080 

3,160 San Francisco to Yokohama 5,280 

930 Shanghai to Yokohama I ,°33 

650 Singapore to Hong Kong 1,430 

800 Suez to Aden (length of Red Sea) . . . 1,308 

1,620 Suva to Honolulu 2,783 

1,050 Sydney to Auckland 1,281 

3,297 Sydney to Vancouver (B. C.) .... 6,780 

1,537 Teneriffe to Porto Rico 2,790 

3,646 Trieste to Bombay 4,3 1 7 

4,000 Yokohama to Honolulu 3,445 

983 Yokohama to San Francisco 4,75° 

1,430 Yokohama to Victoria 4,320 

4,767 Zanzibar to Bombay 2,400 




CHAPTER VIII 



ROBBERS OF THE SEAS 




S the sea has furnished opportunities for so much good, — 
for manly exertion, knowledge of the world, and acquain- 
tance with people outside of one's own country, and for gain- 
ing wealth, — so it has given a chance for unscrupulous men 
to show the worst that is in them; and the guarding of 
shore towns and merchant vessels from piratical attacks has always been a 
part of the usefulness and duty of a nation's naval force. 

As on land there are robbers and highwaymen, so on the ocean robber 
ships have often been lying in wait for vessels loaded with treasure, and 
have landed crews of marauders to make havoc with rich seaboard prov- 
inces. Such robbers on the high seas are termed pirates, and their crime 
was visited by the old laws with torturing punishments; yet they were 
never more daring than when the laws against them were severest. 

The word is Greek, and the first pirates who figure in history are those 
of the Greek and Byzantine islands and coasts — bloody ruffians who origi- 
nated the amusing method of disposing of unransomed prisoners by making 
them "walk the plank," as has been done within the present century. 

The intricate channels and hidden harbors of the Aegean Sea long 
remained a hiding-place of sea-robbers, and are still haunted by them, 
though every few years, from Caesar's time till now, the kings of the sur- 
rounding countries have sent expeditions to break them up. In the sixteenth 
century piracy in that region was especially prevalent. The crews then 
were chiefly Turkish, but the great leaders were two renegade Greeks, the 
brothers Aruck and Hayradin Barbarossa (" Redbeard"). 

It happened that Spain, having conquered the Moors of Granada in 
1492 and pursued her victories across the straits, had gained control of 
Algeria (at that time a collection of small Mohammedan states), and held it 
until the death of King Ferdinand in 15 16. Then the Algerians sent an 
embassy to Aruck (sometimes spelled Horuk, or Ouradjh) Barbarossa, re- 



172 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



questing him to aid them in driving out the Spaniards, and promising him 
a share in the spoils. He eagerly accepted this proposition, seeing a great 
deal more in it than the Algerians saw; and the moment the Spaniards had 




WALKING THE PLANK. 



been beaten and expelled he murdered the prince he had come there to 
help, seized upon the city and port for himself, and made it the headquarters 
of that system of desperate piracy which became the dread of all Europe. 
These robbers of the sea called themselves corsairs, from an Italian word 
signifying "a race"; and they generally won, because they had the best 



ROBBERS OF THE SEAS I /3 

and swiftest vessels of that time, such as feluccas, xebecs, and the like. The 
black flag which they flew was not blacker than their reputations, so that 
even yet to call a man as bad as a Barbary pirate is to mean that he could 
not be much worse if he tried. The Spanish colonies in America, a few 
years later, began sending home immense treasures dug in the silver- and 
gold-mines of Peru and Mexico, and extorted from the natives or stolen from 
the temples of those unhappy countries. A quantity of ingots and gold and 
silver ornaments equal in value to fifteen million dollars of our modern 
money was taken at one time by Pizarro, in Peru, as the ransom of the Inca 
Atahualpa, and booty amounting to a similar sum was gained in the 
sacking of various cities. This great inpouring of wealth caused a general 
giving up of manufactures and trade in Spain, and was one of the reasons 
of her final decline in power, and it had the immediate bad effect of making 
piracy more attractive than ever. The treasure-ships, though convoyed by 
war- ships, were often attacked and captured by the corsairs. Barbarossa's 
fleets were more like armadas of a powerful nation than mere pirate craft; 
and whenever it happened that his commanders were defeated, they would 
land upon the nearest unprotected coast of Spain, France, or Italy, and 
pillage and burn some town in revenge. How galling this was to all mer- 
chants and travelers we can hardly understand in these days ; but so strong 
were the corsairs that the fleets and armies of various governments, and 
even of the Pope, which were sent against them, could not gain their strong- 
hold nor suppress their cruisers, at least for more than a short time. 
Charles V of Spain tried greatly to conquer them ; but although his forces, 
attacking Aruck Barbarossa from the province of Oran, near Algiers, de- 
feated and killed him, Hayradin (more properly spelled Khair-ed-din) Bar- 
barossa succeeded his brother, and, placing himself under the protection 
of Turkey, continued to build up the power of the pirates. His first care 
was to fortify the city of Algiers, and he expended a great deal of money 
and labor on the perfection of the harbor, compelling all his prisoners and 
thousands of citizens to work as slaves on the defenses. Next he conquered 
Tunis, and was selected by the sultan as the only fit man to sail against 
Andrea Doria, the great Genoese naval commander of the Christians in 
their wars against the Turks early in the sixteenth century. Mediterranean 
commerce became so unsafe that watch-towers were built all along the 
coasts, and guards were kept afoot to give alarm at the approach of the 
corsairs. Charles V gathered together a powerful armament, and sailed to 
the rescue of Tunis, recapturing it for its rightful sovereign in 1535 ; but he 
was never able to capture Hayradin Barbarossa, who lived out his life in 
Algiers as " a friend to the sea and an enemy to all who sailed upon it." 



174 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

After his time the power of the pirates continued under other leaders ; and 
not Algeria alone, but Tripoli, Morocco, and even Tunis, harbored piratical 
vessels in every port, and the rulers shared their spoils ; piracy, indeed, 
was the source of their national revenues, and was encouraged by the Sultan 
of Turkey inasmuch as all these states were his vassals. 

Every few years some European power — Spain, France, Venice, or Eng- 
land — would lose patience, send a fleet, and open a campaign that would 
be successful in destroying certain strongholds, releasing a crowd of pris- 
oners, and burning or sinking many ships. The city of Algiers was bom- 
barded almost into ruins in 1682, and the job completed a year later, after 
the Algerians had tossed the French consul out to the fleet, with their 
compliments, from the mouth of a mortar. They were fond of such 
jokes. Nevertheless, the city speedily recovered, and piracy, complicated 
by Moslem fanaticism and Turkish politics, harassed commerce during all 
the next century, partly because Europe was so busy in its own wars that 
it had no time for outside matters, and partly because it was for the advan- 
tage of certain nations (particularly of Great Britain, which, in posses- 
sion of Gibraltar and Port Mahon, might have suppressed this villainy) 
to let the corsairs prey upon its foes — especially France. The actual 
result was that most or all of the European powers fell into the custom 
of paying to Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, and other rulers of the Barbary (or 
Berber) States large sums of money as annual tribute to restrain them from 
official depredations upon their coasts and commerce, besides other large 
payments for the ransom of such Christian prisoners as each sultan's 
lively subjects continued to take in spite of treaties. 

In this shameful condition of affairs the newly independent United States 
was obliged to join during the first years of its existence, to secure im- 
munity for our commerce in the Mediterranean, because we had not yet had 
time to create a navy. By the end of the century, however, the United 
States was able to defend itself at sea, and in 1801 answered the insults of 
Tripoli by bombarding its capital seaport until the dey sued for mercy and 
promised to behave himself. Nevertheless, he needed another lesson, and 
in 1803 a second American fleet was sent to the Mediterranean, commanded 
by Preble, in the Constitution, with such subordinate officers as Bainbridge, 
Decatur, Somers, Hull, Stewart, Lawrence, and others that later became 
famous. One incident of this campaign, which began by frightening the 
Sultan of Morocco at Tangier into abject submission, but was especially 
directed against Tripoli, is well, worth remembering. 

Captain Bainbridge, going alone in the fine frigate Philadelphia into 
the harbor of the city of Tripoli, had unfortunately run aground, and there, 



RoniiKRs i n' i in: si; \s 



175 



overpowered by the number of his enemies afloat and ashore, had been 
compelled to give up his ship, and find himself and all his crew taken pris- 
oners. He managed to get word of his misfortune to Commodore Preble 
at Malta, and that officer at once took his fleet to Tripoli — Decatur, in the 



m^ 



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■ 



■M: 



v • 



■&&%e&l?fyi 




THE "ARGUS" CAPTURING A TRIPOLITAN PIRATE FELUCCA. 



Argus, gallantly capturing on the way one of the great lateen-sailed pirati- 
cal crafts of the enemy, which later proved a useful instrument in the con- 
test. The fleet blockaded Tripoli for a while, and shelled the fortifications 
somewhat, just to give the bashaw a hint, and to encourage the poor pris- 
oners; but none of the big vessels was able to enter the narrow, tortuous, 
and ill-charted harbor in the face of the many batteries, under whose guns 
the Philadelphia could be seen at anchor with the Tripolitan flag at her 



1/6 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

main, so they sailed away to Syracuse to make preparations for reducing 
this nest of barbarians. Gunboats of light draft and mortar-vessels had 
to be fitted out ; but the first thing was to try to carry out a plan that 
Decatur and all his friends had been maturing ever since they had arrived — 
the destruction of the Philadelphia, not only because she had been refitted 
into a powerful weapon in the hands of the enemy, but because it was gall- 
ing to national as well as naval pride to see her flying a foreign flag. The 
plan was this : 

Decatur was to take a picked crew of seventy officers and men on the 
captured felucca (renamed Intrepid}, and attempt at night to penetrate to 
the inner harbor of Tripoli in the disguise of a trader, supported as well as 
possible by the gun-brig Siren, also disguised as a merchantman. As his 
pilot was an Italian and a competent linguist, it was hoped the ketch 
could get near enough to set fire to the ship, whirl a shotted deck-gun into 
position to send a shell down the main hatch and through her bottom, fire 
it, and escape before the surprise was over. The chances of failure were 
enough to daunt the bravest, yet every man in the fleet wanted to go. 

On February 15, 1804, Decatur in his felucca, and Somers commanding 
the brig, found themselves, toward evening, again in sight of the town, with 
its circle of forts crowned by the frowning castle. The great Philadelphia 
stood out in bold relief, closely surrounded by two frigates and more than 
twenty gunboats and galleys. From the castle and batteries 115 guns 
could be trained upon an attacking force, besides the fire of the vessels, yet 
the bold tars on the Intrepid did not quail. 

The crew having been sent below, the pilot Catalona took the wheel, 
while Decatur stood beside him, disguised as a common sailor. It was now 
nine o'clock, and bright moonlight. Standing steadily in, they rounded to 
close by the Philadelphia, and, boldly hailing her deck-watch, asked the priv- 
ilege of mooring to her chains for the night, explaining that they had lost 
their anchors in the late storm, and so forth, until at last consent was given. 

Having dragged themselves close to the frigate, it was the work of only 
a moment to board her with a rush, overpower her surprised crew, and make 
sure of her destruction by means of the combustibles and powder they had 
brought with them. Before- their task was done, however, they had been 
discovered, and it is almost a miracle that they were able to return to their 
felucca, and make their way out of the harbor, through a rain of harmless 
cannon-balls ; yet they did so, and Decatur was justly honored for one of 
the most gallant exploits in naval annals. 

A few weeks later Preble's squadron shelled the pirate city and fortresses 
into ruin, forced Tripoli as well as Algiers and Tunis to respect then and 



ROBBERS OF THE SEAS 177 

thenceforth the American flag, and crave these arrogant rulers the new sen- 
sation of paying instead of receiving money for bad deeds. It put an end 
to the corsairs. 

Turkish and Barbary pirates were not the only ones in the world, how- 
ever. Although the old Norwegian vikings and rough Norman barons 
did not go under that name, they were scarcely anything else, in fact, as 
the neighboring peoples could testify, though this was far back before mod- 
ern history began. But when the Spaniards and the French began- to col- 
onize the West Indies, and to dig mines in South and Central America, not 
only were the Barbary corsairs given a fresh incentive, but a new set ot 
pirates sprang up, the most daring that the world has ever seen. 

As the archipelago east of Greece had sheltered the hordes of the Turk- 
ish sea-robbers, so the many islands, crooked channels, reefs unknown to 
all but the local pilots, small harbors, and abundant food of the Antilles, 
made the West Indies the safest place in the world for pirates to pursue 
their work. To these new and wild regions, in the sixteenth century, had 
flocked desperados and adventurers from all over the world. When the 
wars with their chances of plunder died out after the campaigns led by 
Cortes, Pizarro, Balboa, and the rest of the Spanish conquistadores, many 
ruffians seized upon vessels by force, or stole them, and turned into robbers 
of the sea. At first, as a rule, they had farms and families on some island, 
and went freebooting only a portion of the year. The island of Hayti, or 
Santo Domingo, was then settled by farmers, hunters, and cattlemen, the 
last-named of whom, mainly French, passed most of their time in the in- 
terior of the island, capturing, herding, or killing half-wild cattle and hogs. 
But the monopolies which Spain imposed upon the colonists interfered with 
the market for their produce and induced an illicit trade, which led to fre- 
quent encounters with the Spanish navy. As the constant wars between 
Spain and France and England increased the difficulties of trade, large num- 
bers of the colonists joined the freebooters, who then became extremely 
numerous and formidable, losing their old name and becoming known by 
that of the cattlemen — buccaneers, from the French word boucanier. 

First Santo Domingo, then Tortugas, and finally Jamaica were head- 
quarters of the buccaneers, who were made up of men of all nations, united 
by a desire to prey upon Spain as a common enemy. They were thou- 
sands in number, possessed large fleets of ships and boats, were well armed, 
and finally formed a regular organization with a chief and under-officers. 
The most noted of these chiefs, perhaps, was Henry Morgan, a Welshman, 
who was at one time captured and taken home to England for trial. To his 
own surprise, instead of being executed, he was knighted by Charles II, 



178 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

who had not been at all grieved at seeing Spanish commerce harassed; 
and Morgan was returned to Jamaica as commissioner of admiralty, where 
at one time he acted as deputy governor, using his opportunity to make 
it unpleasant for those of the buccaneers with whom he had formerly had 
disagreements as to the distribution of prizes. 

The earlier buccaneers found ample plunder in the Spanish fleets. 
They patrolled the sea in the track of vessels bound to and from Europe, 
and seized them, allowing or compelling the crews to become pirates, or 
else to be killed or carried into slavery. This work, however, employed 
only a portion of the buccaneers; and early in the seventeenth century, as 
the commerce of Spain declined, it became too uncertain a means of wealth 
to suit them. But the rich Spanish settlements still remained; and often, 
therefore, they equipped a great fleet, enlisted men under certain strict 
rules as to sharing the spoils, and sailed away to pillage some coast. There 
was hardly an island in the West Indies from which, in this way, they did 
not extort immense sums of money under threat of destruction of the people. 
The mainland also suffered from the marauders. Great cities, like Carta- 
gena in Venezuela, Panama on the Isthmus, Merida in Yucatan, and 
Havana in Cuba, were attacked by armies of buccaneers numbering thou- 
sands of men. Sometimes their fortifications held good, and the enemy was 
beaten back ; but sooner or later all these cities, and others, smaller, were 
captured, robbed of everything valuable that they contained, and burned or 
partly burned. 

For years the buccaneers were the terror of the Caribbean region, and 
after the famous sacking of Panama, under Morgan, in 1 67 1 , their power 
spread across the Isthmus and scourged the southern seas. We have no 
way of knowing the amount of the treasure which they captured from the 
merchant vessels and from the coast of Peru ; for the moment they got 
home from an expedition they wasted all their booty in wild carousing, so 
that the spoils earned by months of exposure, and wounds, and danger of 
death, would be spent in a single week. 

At last even England and France, after secretly favoring the buccaneers, 
became roused to the necessity of controlling them, and it was with this 
object in view that a certain Captain William Kidd was fitted out at 
private expense toward the end of the seventeenth century, and armed with 
King William's commission for seizing pirates and making reprisals, 
England being at war with France. Just why it was, nobody has explained, 
but Captain Kidd spent his time in loitering around the coast of Africa, 
where no pirates were to be found, until he grew quite disheartened, and, 
fearing to be dismissed by his employers and to be "mark'd out for an 



ROBBERS OF THE SEA 



1/9 



unlucky man," he started a little pirate business for himself, in which he 
gained more of a certain kind of fame than any of the rest ; for popular 
tradition supposes him to have hoarded his booty and buried it. " Captain 
Kidd's treasure" has been sought for until the whole eastern coast of the 
United States is honeycombed with diggings for it ; but probably he had 
eaten and drunk it up before 1701, when he was captured and executed in 




' In revel and carousing 
We gave the New Year housing 



With wreckage for our firing, 
And rum to heart's desiring." 



England. About this time, however, and without his valuable aid, the 
combined naval forces of all the nations interested in the commerce of the 
New World broke the power of the buccaneers, and their depredations 
ceased. Their story is one of the wildest, most romantic, and most terrible 
in the history of the world. 

The trade of piracy was carried on during the eighteenth century in the 
region of the West Indies by unorganized bands of desperados who had all 
the faults and none of the greatness of the men they succeeded, and who 
received little attention from the world at large. At the beginning of the 
nineteenth century the Barataria pirates came into notice on the coast of 
Louisiana, taking the place of the buccaneers, but in a much smaller way. 
Their leaders, Pierre and John Lafitte, carried on business quite openly in 
New Orleans ; and their settlements on the marshy islands along the coast, 



l8o THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

and their "temple," to which persons came out from the city to buy goods, 
were open secrets. But in the War of 1812, although the British tried to 
buy their services, they redeemed themselves by standing true to the Ameri- 
can government, which had just been trying to exterminate them, and so 
they won public pardon and an added glamour of romance. 

For the same reasons as those in the case of other island systems, the 
East Indies have always been infested with pirates, whose light, swift ves- 
sels run in and out of the intricate channels among- the dangerous coral 
reefs, where government cruisers dare not follow, while the people on shore 
sympathize more with the pirates than with the police. 

The East Indian sea-robbers are, as a rule, natives of that region — 
.Malays, Borneans, Dyaks, and Chinese, with many half-savages of the 
South Sea Islands. This is more like a continuance of savage resistance to 
civilization than real piracy, since the pirates of the Atlantic are civilized 
sailors in mutiny against their own people and national commerce. The 
result is just as bad, however; for these East Indians are as bloodthirsty and 
cruel as the others, and if they do not kill their victims, or save them for 
some cannibal feast (as would probably happen in the New Hebrides and 
some other islands), they condemn them to a life of misery. But in these 
days of improved sea-craft, piracy, even in Malayan waters, is weak. Our 
consuls and government agents watch suspicious vessels; our telegraph 
warns the naval authorities in a moment; our steam-cruisers outspeed 
the swiftest craft of the black flag; our rifled guns silence their cheap artil- 
lery ; and our coast surveys furnish maps so accurate that the pirate no 
longer holds the secret of channels and harbors where he can safely retreat. 
If, therefore, the old " Redbeards " should come back to life and try to be 
kings of the sea, as they rejoiced to be a couple of centuries ago, their pride 
would soon be humbled, and they would gladly return to their graves and 
their ancient glory. 

There is a form of sea-roving which has been at times not very different 
from piracy; it is called privateering, and history shows a good many cases 
where it has degenerated into sea-robbery pure and simple. 

A privateer is a ship, owned by a private citizen or citizens, to which 
authority is given by a government to act as an independent war-vessel. Its 
commission is called a "letter of marque" {lettre dc marque in French), 
entitling it to " take, burn, and destroy " a certain enemy's property on the 
sea or in its ports. It has no right, of course, to attack any one else. 

The object and plea of the government issuing commissions to privateers 
is that thus a great many more armed vessels can be sent afloat than the 
government has money to equip, and that consequently far more damage 



ROBBERS OF THE SEAS 



1S1 




Malay pirates attacking a steamer. 



will be done to the enemy, by crippling his trade and resources, than 
regular men-of-war alone can accomplish. Private capital has been will- 
ing to take the risk because rewarded by a large share of the prizes ; and 
from the end of the fifteenth to the middle of the eighteenth century this 
was one of the most profitable of marine industries, for then nearly universal 
wars made almost any capture legitimate. In the earlier times even the 
limited regulation that came later was absent, and there was small choice 
between a privateer and a pirate. Queen Elizabeth found the hundreds 
of privateers which she had commissioned against the Spanish and Dutch 
preying upon her own people, and robbing fishermen, coasters, and small 
shore towns, to such an extent that she had to suppress them as bandits. 
Those were the times when Hawkins could use a royal fleet to wage war 
upon the Spanish colonies for private reasons ; and when his ablest lieu- 
tenant, Drake, could make his notable journey around the world a history 
of robbery and slaughter. On the west coast of South America he spent 
months in destroying Spanish vessels and ravaging and burning settlements; 
yet it was thought remarkable, when he returned from his circumnavigation 
of the globe, that the Queen hesitated somewhat before recognizing his 
great achievements as a seaman, for fear of complications with Spain ! 

Spain, in those days of first harvest from her American possessions and 



182 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



the East Indies, was the prey of everybody on the high seas able to rob 
her, and formalities were joyously disregarded by both sides. Her galleons 
carried precious cargoes of spices, silks, and East India goods around the 
Cape, and brought silver ingots and gold bars from the Spanish Main. 
They were usually convoyed by regular war-ships, and had to run the gant- 
let of the enemy's fleets whenever Spain happened to be openly at war with 
somebody, as was usually the case ; and otherwise must escape buccaneers 
in West Indian waters, Malayan and Chinese pirates in the far East, and 
irreeular sea-rovers alonof the West African coast, while the corsairs made 
the Mediterranean route doubly dangerous. 

The gradual growth of organized navies, the development of interna- 
tional law, and the increasing organization of the civilized world gener- 




PAUL JONES' FIGHT IN THE "BON HOMME RICHARD" WITH THE "SERAPIS. 



ally, slowly tamed these wild practices and reduced privateering to some 
sort of control. Thus Jean Bart, the popular hero of French naval history, 
who flourished toward the end of the seventeenth century, was recognized 
and supported by the French monarch as a free-lance in the Mediterranean, 



ROBBERS OF THE SEAS 1 8 



J 



because his humble birth prohibited him from taking a commission in the 
regular navy, which amounted to a sort of apology for his deeds. 

During the wars of the United States with England privateering was 
extensively practised on both sides, and was of especial value to the Ameri- 
cans. Congress issued private commissions as early as March, 1776, and 
the ablest statesmen upheld it as a means of employing the ships, capital, 
and thousands of seamen that must lie idle when the enemy's cruisers were 
ranging the ocean highways unless permitted to arm themselves and assist 
the government in an irregular warfare, trusting to the value of their cap- 
tures for remuneration. That the chance of such reward was enough induce- 
ment is shown by the fact that during the first year of the Revolution nearly 
three hundred and fifty British vessels were captured, chiefly West India- 
men, worth, with their cargoes, five million dollars. As Great Britain did 
not recognize the flag of the United States, not only these, but even our 
regular naval officers, were regarded by them as pirates, rather than true 
privateers — Paul Jones first of all ; but she never acted on this theory with 
the severity that would have been visited upon true pirates. 

In the naval warfare that came later between the United States and 
France, privateering again flourished, and was a source of immense profit to 
the principal seaports whence these swift, effective Yankee vessels were 
despatched. No less than three hundred and sixty-five American privateers 
were sent out between 1789 and 1799, and swept the seas almost clean of 
the French merchant flag. 

Then came the second war with Great Britain, which was fought over 
a question of the sea rather than of the land, — the right of search 
claimed by the British, — and once more American and British privateers 
swarmed upon the highways of commerce. Of our merchant ships in all 
parts of the world, about five hundred were lost ; but this was more than 
paid for, since our two hundred and fifty privateers captured or destroyed, 
during the three years and nine months of the conflict, no less than sixteen 
hundred British merchant vessels of all classes. 

This disparity of results was largely clue to the greater number of Eng- 
lish merchant vessels, but is also to be credited to the superior speed and 
handiness of the Yankee vessels, most of which were " Baltimore clippers," 
topsail-rigged schooners with raking masts, that could outsail and out- 
manceuver anything afloat. "They usually carried from six to ten guns, 
with a single long one, which was called ' Long Tom,' mounted on a swivel 
in the center. They were usually manned with fifty persons besides officers, 
all armed with muskets, cutlasses, and boarding-pikes." 

An English writer, Mr. R. C. Leslie, is of the opinion that this type of 



1 84 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



vessel grew out of models in vogue in the West Indies, long before, for the 
small piratical craft that made those waters the terror of travelers. 

These Baltimore clippers, too, enlarged and square-rigged, but still the 
fastest things on the western ocean, formed the craft with which the slave- 
trade was continued between Africa and America long after it had been 
condemned by the civilized world. For many years previous to the Amer- 
ican Civil War, which put an end to the larger part of the traffic by destroy- 









ORAWN By W. TASER. 



ENGRAVED BY HENRY WOLF. 



UNITED STATES FRIGATE "CONSTELLATION" OVERHAULING THE SLAVER "CORA. 1 



ing its market, England and the United States kept squadrons patrolling 
the African coast to arrest the slavers and free their "cargoes." 

What wild, wild tales of the sea do these reminiscences of piracy, pri- 
vateering, and the slave-chase bring to mind — tales of horror, and yet full 
of such deeds of daring and romance and fierce delight as must stir the 
heart in spite of brain and conscience! 

Pirates are things of the past — no more to be feared except in a 
small way in the Malayan and Chinese archipelagoes. The African slave- 
trade is extinct, so far as shipment across the ocean is concerned, save 
where, now and then, an Arab dhow steals with its black cargo along the 
East African foreland, or flits across the Gulf of Aden or the Red Sea. 
Privateering has been forbidden by international treaty among the larger 



ROBBERS OF THE SEAS 



185 



European powers, which now recognize that trade goods, even of belliger- 
ents, must be held safe in the ships of neutrals (except articles declared 
contraband of war), because the business of the world cannot stop, or even 
be put in jeopardy, by a quarrel between two nations. Privateering, there- 
fore, has been abandoned in Europe as a method of war since the treaty of 
Paris in 1856, though Prussia came pretty near it in 1870, by organizing 
what she called a volunteer fleet, and Spain reserves the privilege of com- 
missioning privateers. 

The United States, however, and some other countries whose policy or 
ability forbid them to have a large navy, would not enter into the European 
agreement above mentioned, mutually to abstain from privateering, on the 
plea that to do so would be to yield the most powerful weapon of a nation 
weak in naval armament and sea commerce, against any of many possible 
enemies whose large sea-borne commerce would expose it to the most seri- 
ous wounds. In our Civil War the President issued no letters of marque, 
although authorized to do so. It was customary to speak of the Confederate 
cruisers Alabama, Shenandoah, Florida, etc., as privateers, or even pirates, 
and they actually played the part with a success woeful to us of the North, 
and to Great Britain, which had to pay for the damages caused by the Ala- 
bama ; but, strictly speaking, they were neither, because commissioned by 
a temporary but regular government, whose flag might have been recognized 
if its arms had succeeded. 

More lately (1898) the United States has announced it as its policy to re- 
frain from privateering, though no formal signature has been given to any in- 
ternational agreement to that effect. 





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CHAPTER IX 



YACHTING AND PLEASURE-BOATING 




ACHT is a word derived from the Dutch language, which 
has given to the English so many of its sea-terms, meaning, 
originally, a fast boat, such as was built for chasing pirates 
and smugglers, and, later, a pleasure-boat. The latter 
meaning alone is now kept in view by the word, which is 
properly applied to anything designed and used for pleasure-sailing, 
whether moved by sails, steam, or electricity. 

In Great Britain, where yachting, as we now understand it, arose, it was 
not until about 1650 that races between pleasure craft began to be sailed 
on the Thames and in the quiet waters about the Isle of Wight, while the 
first yacht-club was not formed until 1720 (at Cork, in Ireland). Even then, 
a century elapsed before yachting as a sport attracted much attention even 
among the British, famous for their love of the sea. In 181 2 a "yacht- 
club " was founded at Cowes, in the Isle of Wight. It received a new im- 
petus and became the "Royal Yacht-Club" in 181 7, the Prince Regent 
having joined it, and in 1833 was again reorganized by King William III 
as the "Royal Yacht Squadron," the designation it bears to-day. It car- 
ried on races, or regattas, as they soon came to be called (borrowing from 
the Italians a term descriptive of the old Venetian gondola races), but all 
sorts of cruising-boats were matched against one another, classified by a 
tonnage rule with no allowances for size or any of the systems by which 
contestants are now classified and equalized. 

By this time, however, there was peace on the North Atlantic, and many 
a good seaman was free to turn his attention to enjoying and improving the 
tools of his profession. By this time, also, the Americans had made great 
headway as ship-builders and seamen, and by rivalry with the Old World 
for trade, and by experience in the Newfoundland fisheries and the West 
Indies fruit-trade, had acquired a skill in building and rigging ships that 
astonished the world by their speed and weatherly qualities. It was natural 



187 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



that these ideas should influence pleasure craft on this side of the water, as 
Great Britain's long sea-struggles had influenced its sailors; and when, in 
1844, the New York Yacht- Club was founded, the conditions were favor- 
able for beginning that home development of yachting as a sport which was 




•AMERICA" (AS ORIGINALLY RIGGED) AND "MARIA.' 



soon to place the Americans and Canadians among the leading yachting 
peoples of the world, and to lead to those international tests of speed that 
nowadays excite so wide-spread and intense an interest. 

The great preponderance in numbers and value of pleasure-vessels in 
the United States, and in the number of clubs and club-members, is due not 
only to our large population and long coast-line, but to the great extent of 
inland waters furnished by our rivers and interior lakes, and to the preva- 
lence of bays or protected lagoons, such as Narragansett Bay, the Great 
South Bay of Long Island, New York harbor, Delaware and Chesapeake 
bays, and the long series of "sounds" that border the southern Atlantic coast 
from Barnegat to Biscayne. The Great Lakes are bordered by yacht-clubs 
on both sides, and furnish space and weather for quite as serious work as 
tries the skill of ocean navigators, while a hundred smaller lakes make fine 
pleasure-waters and excellent training-grounds for fresh-water sailors. 



YACHTING AND PLEASURE-BOATING 1 89 

Though the first regatta in America was sailed in 1845, little over half 
a century ago, the evolution of American yachts began with the building 
of the sloop Maria by Robert L. Stevens, one of that family of remarkable in- 
ventors, who had already devised the first practical screw-steamer, and after- 
ward created the Monitor. Her model, as we learn from an excellent article 
in "The Century" for July, 1882, by S. G. W. Benjamin, was suggested 
by the low, broad, almost flat-bottomed sloops employed to steal over the 
shallows of the Hudson and the Sound — vessels depending upon beam 
rather than on ballast for stability, and imitated by many of our coasters, 
which are so stiff that they sometimes make outside voyages without either 
cargo or ballast ; but the Maria had a long, sharp, hollowed bow, whence 
she expanded aft, with little taper at the stern, so that her deck-plan was 
that of an elongated flat-iron. The principal novelty about her, however, was 
the use of two "center-boards." 

A center-board is a plate of wood or metal, suspended, usually by a cor- 
ner pivot, within a sheath or box in the waist, which can be let down through 
the keel into the water, so as to form an adjustable keel. It is the most 
convenient form of a very old device for preventing a boat's drift to leeward, 
or tendency to capsize under the pressure of the wind. In earliest times, 
a mat was hung over the side. Later this was replaced by the leeboard, 
apparently a Dutch invention, which may still be seen on the canal barges in 
Holland, and which was a feature of the pirogues or periaugers (shallow 
double-ended sailing-canoes) that in early times formed almost the only type 
of small sail-boat in New York waters. Two other novel, foreshadowing 
features possessed by Mr. Stevens' boat, were the use of rubber compressors 
on the traveler of the main boom to ease the strain of the sheet (rubber 
is applied in many places about modern rigging), and the bolting of lead to 
the keel as outside ballast. 

The Maria justified the expectations aroused by these and other novel- 
ties in hull and rig by beating everything in existence, until a Swedish 
gentleman in New York constructed a much smaller boat, the Coquette, on 
very different lines, for although only sixty-six feet long she drew ten feet 
of water ; and in a match on the open sea she beat the Maria easily, show- 
ing the superiority of the deep-keeled model for windy weather. 

Profiting by these experiences and widely gathered information, a new 
designer essayed the task of making a still better yacht. This was George 
Steers, the son of a British naval captain and ship-modeler, who had become 
an American naval officer and was the first man to take charge of the Wash- 
ington navy yard. He built several graceful and fleet-winged sloops, 
famous in their day, such as the Julia, David Carl's Grade, and many 



190 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

pilot-boats and ships. His most celebrated production, however, and the 
one which gave our yachtsmen an international reputation and established 
their method of pursuing recreation as the foremost American sport, was 
the America, from which the "America Cup" races take origin and name. 

The origin was really accidental. When the first World's Fair was to 
be held at the Crystal Palace in London, one of the attendant festivities was 
a great national gathering of British yachts in their favorite harbor, Cowes, 
at which, it was announced, foreign yachtsmen were to be welcome, 
especially Americans. In preparation for it, John C. Stevens, of Hoboken, 
then Commodore of the New York Yacht-Club, and some of his friends, 
ordered a new yacht from George Steers with which to cross the Atlantic 
and meet the English racers. This new boat, completed in the spring of 
185 1, and named America, was schooner-rigged, but had raking masts, 
no topsails except a small main -gaff, and only one jib, whose foot was laced 
to a boom. Such was the style of the day ; but later she was changed in 
rig so as to carry far more and bigger sails, more like those of a modern 
schooner-yacht. 

The moment she arrived in Cowes, in the early summer of 1851, her 
superiority in speed was conceded, and no British captain would consent to 
meet her; but finally a match was extemporized, open to all nations, for 
which a prize was offered in the form of a cup presented by the Royal Yacht 
Squadron — not by the Queen, as usually said. Fifteen yachts responded, 
but none showed what it could do, for there was little wind, and the cup 
was awarded to the America more in general acknowledgment of its excel- 
lence than because of any great performance there. Not much importance 
was attached to the incident, but the silver tankard was brought home and 
left to ornament Commodore Stevens' drawing-room until 1857, when its 
owners dedicated it to the purpose of a perpetual challenge cup, in charge 
of the New York Yacht-Club, for international races under specified condi- 
tions. Fifteen years elapsed, however, before the first contestant appeared. 

The America had differed prominently in shape from all her opponents 
at Cowes, by having fine hollowed bows and a wide stern, instead of the 
bluff bows and narrowing after part — the "cod's head and mackerel's tail" 
pattern — of English craft; she also had sails that hung very flat instead of 
bellying out under the wind as was the foreign style. In these directions 
British yachtsmen saw good, and tried to improve ; but they would have 
nothing to do with center-boards, and clung to their cutter-rig. We, on the 
other hand, had gained ideas as to improving rig, especially in the schooners, 
and in the bestowal of ballast, outside and in. 

At length, in 1870, an English schooner, the Cambria, came over to 



YACHTING AND PLEASURE-BOATING 



I 9 I 



compete for the cup, and was pitted against a fleet of crack yachts off Sandy 
Hook ; but again the wind was so light that the boats did little more than 
drift. The Englishman, nevertheless, was outdrifted by nine others, and 
the leader was the little sloop Magic, which became the custodian of the 
cup. The next year, however, another challenge was received, and the 
British keel-yacht Livonia appeared and was defeated by the American 
keel-schooner Sappho, which, under a new rule, had won her right to defend 
the cup by first beating in preparatory ocean races all other rivals for the 
honor. As this contest was between single representative yachts, tried in 






*5£ 



•GENESTA," "TARA," AND "IREX" — THE BRITISH TYPE OF CUTTER OF 1S84-85. 

" Galatea," 1885, belonged to the same type. 



five races, and in all sorts of weather, it was a fair and conclusive measure 
of comparative qualities. The next yacht to come after the international 
cup was the Canadian Countess of Dufferin, which was promptly defeated 
by the Magic in 1876. Five years later another Canadian appeared, the 
Atalanta, differing from previous contestants in being a single-masted center- 



I92 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

board yacht ; but her rigging and finish were so bad that her excellent 
model could not save her from defeat (1881) at the hands of the elegant 
iron sloop Mischief, which had been built especially for the race, and had 
won her foremost place through severe trial races, as before. 

Up to this time, as Mr. W. P. Stephens tells us in " The Century " for 
August, 1893, whence many of the portraits of these racers have been taken, 
no pleasure-boats had been built except after the rule of thumb — some 
practical sailor whittled out a model according to his ideas, and the builder 
followed it. 

Systematic designing was unknown, and . . . one type of yacht was in general use, the 
wide, shoal center-board craft, with high trunk cabin, large open cockpit, ballast all inside (and 
of iron, or even slag and stone), and a heavy and clumsy wooden construction. Faulty in every 
way as this type has since been proved, in the absence of any different standard it was considered 
perfect, and open doubts were expressed of the patriotism if not the sanity of the few American 
yachtsmen who, about 1877, called into question the merits of the American center-board sloop, 
and pointed out the opposing qualities of the British cutter — her non-capsizability, due to the 
use of lead ballast outside of the hull; her speed in rough water; and the superiority of her rig 
both in proportions and in mechanical details. 

A wordy warfare over these types raged for several years, gaining strength with the building 
of the first true English cutter, the Muriel, in New York in 1878, and bearing good fruit a year 
later in the launching of the Mischief, an American center-board sloop, but modified in accor- 
dance with the new theories. The plumb stem, the straight sheer, and higher free-board, with 
quite a shapely though short overhang, suggested the hull of the cutter, and though quite wide 
— nearly twenty feet on sixty-one feet water-line — she drew nearly six feet. Even with her 
sloop rig she was a marked departure from the older boats of her class, especially as she was 
built of iron in place of wood, and consequently carried her ballast, all lead, at a very low point. 

One of the results of this controversy was the sending to this country, 
from Scotland, of a little ten-ton racing cutter, the Madge, purely to show 
what capabilities lay in " a deep, narrow, lead-keeled craft with the typical 
cutter rig." The only American able to beat her was the Shadow, a famous 
Herreshoff sloop of unusual depth, and she did it but once. Nevertheless, 
the controversy was not decided in the United States, and the Britishers 
thought it worth while to try to give us another lesson. In 1884 they 
launched two big cutters, Irex and Genesta, and in 1885 a third, Galatea ; 
and Sir Richard Sutton, owner of Genesta, and Lieutenant William Henn, 
R. N., owner of Galatea, challenged for the America Cup. 

Then the question arose : What should be done to meet them ? The 
British cutters differed from those previously met, in that they were built 
for racing, not for general use — were "racing machines" instead of cruis- 
ing-yachts. To meet this, a scientific designer of marine vessels, Mr. A. Cary 
Smith of New York, was called upon to produce a moderately deep, center- 



YACHTING AND PLEASURE-BOATING 



193 



board, iron sloop-yacht on the lines of the Mischief, but much larger, and 
he produced the Priscilla. But while she was building there was quietly 
begun another yacht, the Puritan, owned and built in Boston from designs 
by an almost unheard-of architect, Mr. Edward Burgess, who previously 
to this performance had been renowned only as a student of insects ! 

" The stout oak keel 
of the new Puritan was 
laid upon a lead keel of 
twenty-seven tons, car- 
ried down into a deep 
projecting keel ; the 
plumb stem, the sheer, 
and the long' counter 
suggested the British 
cutter rather than the 
American sloop ; the 
draft of eight feet six 
inches was greatly in 
excess of all of the old 
center-board boats, and 
the rig was essentially 
that of the cutter rather 
than of the sloop." 

A struggle decided 
that she was better than 
the Priscilla, and in the 
cup races in September 
she proved herself bet- 
ter than the famous 
English cutter Geuesta. 

Nevertheless, when the Galatea, whose challenge had been postponed 
until 1886, came out, the Puritan had already been distanced by an Ameri- 
can rival, the Mayflower, practically a larger copy of herself, as Galatea 
was of Genesta, and, therefore, a lead-keeled center-board boat, having a 
cutter-like rig. Trial races showed that the Mayflower was able to beat all 
her beautiful predecessors, and again the British contestant was obliged to 
take a defeat and leave the prize in New York. 

The result of this last contest (1886) was to cause British yachtsmen 
to abandon their old tonnage rule of measurement and adopt the far better 
modern one of load-line and sail-area measurement. Another challenge 




THE CUTTER "MURIEL," SHOWING THE ENGLISH 
DEEP-DRAFT TYPE OF BUILD AND RIG. 



i 9 4 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



immediately came from Glasgow, supported by a boat named Thistle, 
built under the new rule ; and to oppose it Mr. Burgess built the Volunteer, 
which differed from its predecessors mainly in increased draft and tendency 

toward the cutter model. 
She easily beat the Thistle, 
and the discouraged foreign- 
ers rested for some years 
before trying again to wrest 
from us the coveted trophy. 
In 1 89 1, however, there 



*&• 




•ssifijfcf,; --^— g> 




OM PH0TO3RAPHS By J. S. JOHNSTON A 



"PURITAN." 

came to New York, from 
the yards of the Herreshoff 
Brothers, in Rhode Island, 
a new forty-six-foot yacht, 
which soon put the fame 
of the Volunteer and all "Mayflower." 

her glorious rivals into the 

background. This was the Gloriana, "remarkable as a daring and original 
departure from the accepted theories." The radical novelty in her form con- 
sisted in the great cutting away of her bulk under water while preserving 
the full extent of the water-line, and the making of a very deep, heavily 
loaded keel, trusted for stability. Her hull was also novel, consisting of a 
double skin of thin wood on steel frames, while the upper part of the hull 
projected excessively at both ends. She was everywhere a winner, and was 
immediately followed by a smaller boat, the Dilemma, whose keel was an 
almost rectangular plate of steel, the ballast, which alone was trusted for 
stability, being in the form of a cigar-shaped cylinder of lead bolted to the 
lower edge of the " fin," as this kind of keel was appropriately styled. Many 
boats of this pattern were soon afloat, most of them highly successful at home 
and abroad, and carrying a surprising spread of canvas. 

The year 1893 brought another challenge for the cup in the person of 
Lord Dunraven, sailing the yacht Valkyrie, but he was met by a new, well- 



YACHTING AND PLEASURE-BOATING 



195 



proved Herreshoff fin-keel, the Vigilant (built of a new alloy — Tobin 
bronze), and handsomely defeated. The following season the Vigilant 
went to England, and found herself equally overmatched by the Britannia, 
owned by the Prince of Wales, while Valkyrie II was wrecked. In 1895 
Lord Dunraven sent a second challenge, backed by a new Valkyrie (III) ; 
and this produced a fresh American contestant, again designed and built by 
the Herreshoffs, named Defender. The races came off amid intense public 
excitement, outside of Sandy Hook, but were most unsatisfactory; "in the 
first, Defender won ; in the second, Valkyrie was disqualified as the result 
of a foul, and Lord Dunraven declined to sail a third." 

Such has been the history of this long series of races for the America 
Cup, and such the development of its defenders ; but while they and their 



_D D_ 



V, 



a 




v- 




COMPARISON OF OLD AND NEW TYPES. 



1. "America," 1851, water-line 90 feet. — 2. " Cambria," 1868, water-line 100 feet. — 3. " Magic," 1857-69, water-line 79 feet. — 
4. " Sappho," 1867, water-line 120 feet. — 5. " Mischief," 1879, water-line 61 feet. — 6. " Puritan," 1885, water-line Si 
feet.— 7. " Genesta," 1884, water-line 8: feet.— 8. "Thistle," 1887, water-line 86 feet. — 9. "Volunteer," 
1887, water-line 85 feet. — 10. " Gloriana," 1891, water-line 45 feet. — 11. " W^sp," 1892, water- 
line 46 feet. — 12. " El Chico," 1892, water-line 25 feet. 

work have stimulated interest in yachting all over the world, they have really 
not influenced it greatly, because all of the later boats competing were not 
practical yachts, in which one might cruise and live afloat, and enjoy life 
with his friends, but " machines" in which every quality tending to comfort 



196 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



and safety was sacrificed to the requirements of speed. In fact, the owners 
of these "big boats" kept small, handy, comfortable yachts for their own 
enjoyment, and the racers were as a rule sailed by a skipper and crew of 
professional racing sailors. 

There are said to be over two hundred yacht-clubs in the United States, 
enrolling about four thousand yachts, an eighth of which are steam or elec- 
tric boats, scattered wherever any water 
suitable for the sport exists. With the 
lakes and rivers we have nothing to 
do, except to say that the yachtsmen 
of Montreal and Quebec are really 
salt-water sailors, for they cruise in the 
Gulf of St. Lawrence and elsewhere at 
sea as well as their fellow-sportsmen 
of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. 
At the other extreme the Havana 
Yacht-Club has American members 
who take their boats to the West Indies 
every winter. Bermuda is another fa- 
vorite resort, and the scene of livelyraces 
with a local, narrow sort of craft, called 
a "flyer," which will beat almost any- 
thing if only it can be kept right side up. 




1 PHOTOGRAPH F3Y WALTER BLACKBURN, 



THE NEWPORT CATBOAT. On the Pacific coast, . . . wherever there 

is a bay that will afford a harbor, and a town that 
will support people, the yacht is used as a vehicle of pleasure. . . . Many of the San Fran- 
cisco boats are large schooners, a number are powerful sea-going sloops, while of smaller craft 
there is an abundance of almost every type, although the New York catboat and the flat-bot- 
tomed sharpie of Long Island Sound are seldom met with, and seem not to be in favor. . . . 
Pacific yachters appreciate the good points of the yawl, for the squalls which blow over the 
waters of the west coast are sudden and severe, and no rig meets these conditions of weather 
so well as does the yawl. 



The most important and numerous yachting interest of the country, how- 
ever, as would be expected, is along the northeastern seaboard, where, 
measured by numbers and the investment in boats, wharves, club-houses, and 
equipments generally, it surpasses any other district in the world. More 
than one hundred clubs exist between Maine and Philadelphia. 

The earliest form of yacht [as Mr. F. W. Pangborn reminds us in "The Century" for May, 
1S92] was, of course, a rowboat with a sail. . . . From the primitive sprit-sail pleasure-boat 
comes the ever-present and universally favored center-board catboat, a type of yacht which, for 



YACHTING AND PLEASURE-BOATING 



197 




RIG OF THE YAWL. 



speed., handiness, and unsafeness, has never 
been surpassed. Keel catboats are also built, 
but the typical American " cat " is the center- 
board boat of light draft, big beam, and huge 
sail. The two objectionable points about boats 
of this class are their capsizability, and their 
bad habit of yawing when sailing before the 
wind. Yet the cat is the handiest light- 
weather boat made. It is very fast, quick in 
stays, and simple in rig ; but it can never 
become a first-class seaworthy type of yacht. 
It belongs among the fair-weather pleasure- 
boats. . . . 

From the center-board catboat grew the 
jib-and-mainsail sloop, a type of yacht which 
has always been noted for its great speed and 
general unhandiness. Small yachts of this 
kind are always racers, and the interest in racing is sufficient to keep them in the lists of popular 
boats. In design they are like the catboats, the only difference being in their rig. These two 
boats, the center-board cat and the jib-and-mainsail sloop, are what yachters call "sandbag- 
gers " ; that is to say, their ballast consists of bags of sand which are shifted to windward 
with every tack and thus serve to keep the yachts right side up. A boat ballasted in this 
manner can carry more sail than rightly belongs on her sticks, but she cannot be very safe 
or comfortable. Her place is in the regatta. It is not beyond the truth to assert that the 
sandbaggers constitute probably two fifths of the total of small yachts. They will never 
cease to be popular, for the reason that speed and sport are synonymous terms with a great 
many yachters, and no one can deny that these boats, like Brother Jasper's sun, " do move." 

Passing the sandbaggers, the next 
popular and most universally used yacht 
is the ballasted sloop. A sloop may be 
a center-board boat, or a keel boat, or a 
combination of both. She has only one 
mast and carries a topmast. Her sails 
are many, and, like the cutter, she is 
permitted to carry clouds of canvas in 
a race. Technically speaking, a cutter 
differs from a sloop only in one point, 
as the terms " sloop " and " cutter " really 
apply to the rig of the yacht. The cut- 
ter has a sail set from her stem to her 
masthead ; the sloop has not. This sail 
is called a forestay-sail, and its presence 
marks the cutter-rig. The term " cut- 
ter," however, is usually applied to the 
long, narrow, deep-keeled vessel, and 
has in common parlance grown to mean 
a boat of that type. It is in that sense 
that it is generally understood. It is 
worthy of notice that nearly all yachters 
13* 




DRAWN BY W. TABER, FROM 



' WALTER BLACKBURN. ENGRAVED BV f 



A SANDBAGGER SLOOP. 



198 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 




A SHARPIE. 



who cruise about in summer, and especially those 
who are fond of speedy boats, use either sloops or 
cutters ; and it is remarkable to see how much com- 
fort can be found in boats of these types, even when 
quite small. ... 

The average yachting man, if he be of that stuff 
of which good seamen are made, soon finds his chief 
delight in being master of his own vessel. He likes 
to feel that it is his skill, his prowess, his intellect, that 
rule the ship in which he sails ; and finding this 
complete mastery of the vessel to be impossible 
aboard a big boat, he longs for one which he can 
handle alone. This independent and sportsman- 
like instinct of the American yachter has culmi- 
nated in a liking for certain classes of very small boats, — "single-handers" they are called, — and 
this liking has given impetus to the building of some little vessels which are really marvels in 
their way. Simplicity and handiness of rig have been 
considered in their construction, and this has led in 
many cases to the adoption of what is known as the 
yawl style, a rig which for safety and convenience 
has never been surpassed by any other. The yawl 
is really a schooner with very small mainsail. For 
small cruising-yachts it is an excellent rig, and pref- 
erable to the cat rig. Cat-yawls are also in use; 
they are merely yawls without jibs. With such rigs 
as these a yachter can go alone upon the water with- 
out fear of trouble and with no need of assistance. 
Naturally, with men of moderate means who love 
the water, these small single-handers have become 
very popular. Some of them are not over sixteen 
feet long, yet the solitary skipper-crew-and-cook, all 

in one, of such a boat finds in his yacht comfortable sleeping-quarters, cook-stove, dinner-table, 

and all necessary "fixings." The ingenuity dis- 
played in fitting out the cabins of these little 
boats is quite remarkable. 

Of the many nondescript rigs which are ap- 
plied to small yachts, two are in common use. 
One of these is the sharpie, a simple leg-o'-mut- 
ton rig used with flat-bottomed boats. Large 
sharpies have been built with fine cabin accom- 
modations, and such boats are particularly adapted 
to the shoal waters of the South. They are fast 
sailers, but. owing to their long, narrow bodies 
and light draft, are not always trustworthy. 
They are cheaper to build than boats of other 
designs. . . . 

Buckeyes are favored only in the South. 
Originally the buckeye was a log hollowed out 
and shaped into a boat, and was used by the 




A BUCKEYE. 




OLD-STYLE PIROGUE WITH LEEBOARD. 



YACHTING AND PLEASURE-BOATING 



I 99 



negroes. To-day, however, buckeyes are built upon carefully drawn plans, and many of them 
are excellent vessels. They are common on the coast waters south of the Delaware Bay, and 
are used chiefly for hunting-boats, their cheapness, handiness, and roominess rendering them 
useful to the sportsman. A true buckeye is a double-ender, but some large ones have been 
built with an overhang stern, which destroys the ideal and creates a new kind of craft. 

A few years ago the sailing public was surprised by the appearance upon the waters of a 
spider-like contrivance which its friends said was a " catamaran." This new claimant for yacht- 
ing favor was like the raft of the South Sea Islanders only in name ; in fact, it was not a 
catamaran at all, but a new device for racing over the water by means of sails. Wonderful feats 
were predicted for the future of the catamaran, and it certainly did accomplish something ; but 
after a long and fair trial (for the yachter, no matter how bigoted he may be, will always try a 
new boat) it was discarded as a useless, dangerous, and decidedly unsatisfactory kind of craft. . . . 

Leaving the discussion of the odds and ends of yacht styles, we come, by natural progress, 
to a type which is destined to greater popularity as time goes on, and yachters learn the ways 
of the sea and the best methods of dealing with them. Although the schooner is generally 
deemed a big yacht, it is nevertheless a fact that small schooners are desirable boats to have, 
and that the number of schooners of small tonnage is increasing. There is no denying the ad- 
vantage of the schooner's rig over that of the sloop. A schooner of forty feet is handier, safer, 
and less expensive to run than a forty-foot sloop. The rig of the schooner is peculiarly adapted 
to all weathers, and a small crew can handle such a vessel with ease, when to manage a sloop 
of equal size would require the best efforts of " all hands and the cook." The reason for this is 
that the schooner's sails can be attended to one at a time, which is not the case with the big- 
mainsail sloop. 

It is the small yachter [Mr. Pangborn declares in conclusion] who gives to the sport its 
wide popularity, and makes yachting so universally loved by men who are fond of aquatic 
pleasuring. The small yachter is everywhere upon the waters. From the coast of Maine, from 
the shores of the harbor of the Golden Gate, from the beaches of the Atlantic seaboard, and 
from the borders of the inland lakes, he can be seen, all summer long, sailing about in his little 
vessel, and enjoying in all its fullness the excitement and delight of this most noble and health- 
giving sport. With a pluck and energy that mark the true lover of the sea, and a tact and skill 
that bespeak the real sailor, he handles his little craft, in fair weather and in foul, in a manner 
that leaves no room for doubt as to its fitness for the work which he is doing ; for, whether he 
sail alone, or with the help of his friends, or that of a hired man to run his boat, he is always the 
master of his vessel, — which is seldom the case with the proprietor of the big boat, — and is in 
reality a " yachtsman " under all circumstances, at all times, and in all weathers. He must be 
cool-headed and calm in times of peril, affable and courteous on all social occasions, and gener- 
ous and prompt to respond to all calls upon his courage — in brief, a gentleman. 








FROM A PHOTOGRAPH Br WALTER BLACKBURN. 



YACHTS WAITING FOR A BREEZE. 




\h 




. 




% 




THE "ADLER" PLUNGING TOWARD THE REEF AT SAMOA. 



CHAPTER X 



DANGERS OF THE DEEP 




EITHER ships of the stanchest steel, nor seamen however 
skilful, nor pilots never so knowing, can wholly avoid the 
dangers of a seafaring life. Experience in reading the signs 
of the ocean and of the skies, surveyors' charts of coasts and 
harbors, added to the appliances of powerful modern machin- 
ery, have lessened the perils, it is true, since the old times ; yet even now ships 
sail proudly out of sunny havens, their topsails watched by loving eyes till 
they disappear at sunset, and are never seen again. On a calm day in 1782 
the great hundred-gun line-of-battle-ship Royal George sank at her anchors 
in the harbor of Spithead, carrying down almost a thousand souls ; thirty 
years ago the Captain, then one of the finest of England's steam turret- 
ships, capsized at sea, and not a man survived. Each of these vessels was 
perhaps the best of its kind in the world. No better navigators exist than 
naval officers, yet they ran the historic old steam- frigate Kearsargc on Ron- 
cador Reef, in the Caribbean Sea, in broad daylight, and left her there a 
total wreck. Not a year passes that does not record some dire calamity on 
the ocean, and many lesser accidents. 

The wild oceanic storms are responsible for fewer of these than anything 
else — I mean the mere power of wind and waves in the open sea. When a 
captain has sea-room, and knows in advance, as he almost always may, of 
the coming of a storm, so that he can make everything snug, the loss of his 
vessel, or even serious damage to her, is not common. Yet the mere vio- 
lence of the gale has overturned, beaten down, and extinguished the greater 
part of the Newfoundland fishing-fleet again and again, and doubtless many 
of the ships that are recorded as "missing" have been sunk simply by over- 
whelming waves. 

Certain rare and extraordinary mishaps nevertheless may meet a vessel 
in the open ocean. One of these is a stroke of lightning, powerful enough 
to set a ship on fire in spite of her lightning-rods, and such a fire is likely 



202 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



never to be quenched. Another extraordinary occurrence would be an over- 
whelming waterspout, such as not infrequently is seen in the tropics, espe- 
cially along the Chinese coast, where it often plays havoc with fishing junks. 
A third unusual, yet possible, peril is the meeting with those waves of 
sudden and extraordinary size and volume which sometimes engulf vessels in 
storms that otherwise might be safely weathered, or are surmounted only by 
a miracle, as it were. These are said to be produced in some cyclones, as 
one of the effects of that whirling form of storm, and are often called tidal 
waves, but the tide has nothing to do with their formation or progress. 




THE U. S. S. "ONEIDA" AFTER COLLISION WITH A STEAMSHIP. 



To say that a ship in mid-ocean might be destroyed by an earthquake 
seems paradoxical and absurd, yet it is true. Whenever a subterranean 
convulsion occurs beneath or at the edee of the sea, the water will be aei- 
tated in proportion to its force. Strike a tub of water a gentle tap and see 
how its liquid contents shiver and ripple. Watch a railway train running 
at the edge of a body of water, and observe how the water trembles under 
the percussion of the wheels upon the ground. 

Earthquake shocks give rise sometimes to great disturbances, either by 
a direct jar to the water, or by setting in motion waves whose rolling does 



DANGERS OF THE DEEP 203 

damage, especially in confined harbors. Sometimes a port will be suddenly 
invaded by a wave, the cause of which was an earthquake, which rolls in 
upreared like a wall, and carries death and destruction in its course. The 
principal port of the island of St. Thomas, in the West Indies, was once 
devastated by this means. The incoming wave is said to have been over 
forty feet high, and broke inland, destroying much property and causing 
many deaths. " So tremendous was this breaker that it landed a large 
vessel on a hillside half a mile from the harbor." 

Such catastrophes are not uncommon in volcanic districts, where the 
ocean retorts with terrible vengeance when it is struck by the land. That 
appalling explosion in 1883 of Krakatoa, in the Strait of Sunda, was fol- 
lowed on neighboring coasts by a series of vast billows that rolled inland, 
deluging a wide extent of shore, sweeping away over 150 villages, and 
crushing or drowning more than .30,000 persons. Within a few years the 
coasts of northern Japan have been inundated repeatedly by earthquake 
waves with similar dire calamities, and they are likely to occur again. Now 
and then earthquakes are felt even in the open sea, far from land. Thus, 
Captain Lecky, a scientific writer upon the sea, tells us that in one instance 
where he was present, the inkstand upon the captain's table was jerked 
upward against the ceiling, where it left an unmistakable record of the 
occurrence ; and yet this vessel was steaming along in smooth water, many 
hundreds of fathoms deep. " The concussions," he says, " were so smart that 
passengers were shaken off their seats, and, of course, thought that the ves- 
sel had run ashore." All this disturbance was, nevertheless, only the result 
of a shock at the bottom ; and when the non-elastic nature of water is con- 
sidered, the severity of the jar is not surprising. 

It would seem as though in the vast breadth of the "world of waters," 
and with nothing to obstruct the view, two ships might easily give one 
another a wide berth ; yet a collision is one of the ever-present dangers of 
voyaging, even far from land. It is to avoid this peril that all the maritime 
nations have agreed upon certain signals, and "rules of the road " which are 
the same in all parts of the world, and without which it would now be almost 
impossible to carry on commerce or travel on the water. 

The rules of the road say that when two vessels are approaching one 
another, head on, each shall turn off to the right far enough to avoid the 
other ; that when two vessels are crossing one another's courses, the one 
which has the other on her starboard (right hand) must turn to starboard 
(the right), and go behind the other vessel, while the latter continues along 
her course ; and that a steam vessel must always get out of the way of a 
sailing vessel, one at anchor or disabled, or a vessel with another in tow. 



204 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

It is presumed that every ship will keep a sharp lookout, and that in the 
daytime two approaching ships will see each other in time to keep safely 
apart; but in the darkness of night none could be safe unless all carried 
lights by which the position and character of each could be determined. 

In ancient times this matter of lights at sea was a much more trouble- 
some one than now. We know that the Roman navy managed it somehow, 
and had methods of signaling by lanterns and torches. In medieval and 
early times, say up to a couple of centuries ago, a ship's lights were a much 
more conspicuous and bothersome part of her than now, when, indeed, 
electricity has simplified as well as perfected signaling as much as it has 
benefited general illumination on ship's board. In such ships as those of 
the Armada, and long afterward, three huge lanterns made of ornamental 
iron-work, sometimes large enough to enable a man to move about inside 
them, surmounted the elevated after-quarter ; and these were filled with 
dozens of great candles. How important candles were in the stores of one 
of these old ships is shown by the fact that we still call a merchant who 
outfits vessels a ship-chandler. Regular rules were formulated for judging 
of a ship's position and movements, and how you ought to steer by the way 
these beacons grouped themselves. The introduction of whale oil gradually 
superseded candles and as the sperm-lamp did not require a glass house, 
smaller lanterns took the place of the big ones, until finally, by aid of lenses, 
reflectors, and kerosene, and still more lately by the use of electricity, ship's 
lights have become the small, handy, and powerful ones they are to-day. 

The present rules as to lights are these — using the language of a 
United States navy officer, Lieut. John M. Ellicott, who has written many 
instructive and entertaining essays on sea-affairs : 

When you face toward a ship's bow the side at your right hand is called the starboard side, 
and the side at your left hand is called the port side. On her starboard side a ship carries at 
night a green light, and it is so shut in by the two sides of a box that it cannot be seen from the 
port side or from behind. On her port side she carries a red light, and it is so shut in that it 
cannot be seen from the port side or from behind. If the ship is a steamship she carries a big 
white light at her foremast-head, but if she is a sailing vessel she does not. This white masthead 
light can be seen from all around except from behind. . . . 

It is for the red and green lights, commonly known as the side lights, that the officer of the 
deck most intently watches (when the lookout warns him that lights are in sight), for by them he 
can tell which way the vessel is going. If her red light shows, he knows that her port side is 
toward him and she is crossing to his left ; if it is her green light, her starboard side is toward 
him and she is crossing to his right ; but if both the red and green are showing, she is heading 
straight in his direction. . . . If a vessel has another vessel in tow, she carries two masthead 
lights instead of one ; and when a vessel is at anchor she has no side lights or masthead light, 
but a single white light made fast to a stay where it can be seen from all around her. 

In rivers and crowded harbors it is often impossible to follow the rules of the road ; and 



DANGERS OF THE DEEP. 



205 



sometimes even at sea the officer of the deck of one vessel discovers that the other is not heeding 
the rules. Then the steam-whistle is used to tell the other vessel what the first is doing. Thus, 
one whistle means " I am going to the right " ; two whistles mean " I am going to the left " ; 
and three whistles mean "I am backing"; while a series of short toots means "Look out for 
yourself; get out of the way ! " 

There is one class of vessels which is most annoying to those who direct the course of large 
steamers. These are small fishing-vessels. On the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, on the 
coast of Spain, and on the coasts of China and Japan big fleets of these little vessels are found at 




ELECTRIC-LIGHT SIGNALS AT SEA: ARDOIS SYSTEM. 

all times. They show no lights at night, preferring to save the expense of oil, and take their 
chances of being sent to the bottom ; but when they see a big ship rushing down upon them, 
they light a torch and flare it about. Often they pay for their folly with their lives. The torch 
is seen too late, or not seen at all, and the great iron bow of the steamship crushes into the frail 
little craft, perhaps cutting her clean in two ; and the unhappy fishermen sink into the foaming 
wake of the churning propellers, leaving not a soul to tell their wives what became of them. 



Signaling with lights is principally of use to men-of-war, where, also, 
lanterns hung in the rigging in a particular order have a definite significance. 
For long-distance signaling the best system is that invented by Lieutenant 



Very, U. S. N. 



These night-signals 



: consist of a white, a red, and a green 



206 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



star, each fired into the air from a pistol, so that by firing one, two, or three 
of them in quick succession and in different orders, with a pause between the 
groups, different letters or signal numbers can be made until a sentence is 
complete." They can be easily read from vessels twelve miles away. For 

nearer work the system of the Span- 
ish navy officer, Ardois, which con- 
sists in flashing and extinguishing, by 
means of a switchboard on deck, a 
series of red and white electric lamps 
in the rigging, serves very well ; and 
close at hand a sigmal-man waves an 
incandescent electric bulb by night 
as he would a flag by day. 

It is, however, when the land is 
approached that the sailor's perils 
become menacing. Here Old Nep- 
tune is still a match for us when he 
asserts himself. Nevertheless, we 
must go upon the restless waters, 
and must risk a contest with their 
power along the coasts, where the 
ocean's line of battle may be said to 
be. Therefore, every effort has al- 
ways been made by men on land to 
be of aid to their brethren at sea by 
erecting beacons to guide them bv 
night as well as by day, by marking 
the channels, so that hidden shoals, 
rocks, and obstructions may be 
avoided, and by contrivances to save 
life and property when the fury of 
the gale renders seamanship futile, 
and the noble ship is cast away in 
the surf thundering- on some wild 
shore, to break up in a few hours. 
What could be more humiliating 
to our pride, as well as terrifying to our hearts, than such a scene as that at 
Samoa, in 1889, when a whole fleet of ships, including powerful men-of-war, 
was wrecked while at anchor in the beautiful harbor of Apia. Of small 
use, then, were all their charts and lighthouses, buoys and breakwaters ! 




THE ■• VERY 



;ket-signal at sea. 



DANGERS OF THE DEEP. 



207 



Jr 




The disturbed state of affairs in 
Samoa caused the assemblage there, 
during March, 1889, of three small 
German men-of-war, Adler, Olga, 
and Eber, the British corvette Cal- 
liope, and the American steamships 
Trenton, Vandaliaand jVipsic. The 
Trenton, Captain Farquhar, was one 
of our largest war-ships at that time, 
and the flagship of Rear-Admiral 
Kimberley ; the Vandalia, Cap- 
tain Schoonmaker, was somewhat 
smaller, and the Nipsic, Comman- 
der Mullan, was still less in size. 
On March 15 a hurricane demol- 
ished the whole of this fleet, except 
one, and ten merchant vessels be- 
sides, and caused the loss of nearly 

one hundred and fifty lives. It is an extraordinary story, which has been 
fully related by Mr. John P. Dunning, from whose article in "St. Nicholas" 
for February, 1890, the accompanying facts and illustrations are drawn. 



THE 



'CALLIOPE" ESCAPING FROM APIA 
HARBOR. 



The harbor in which the disaster occurred is a small semicircular bay, around the inner 
side of which lies the town of Apia. A coral reef, visible at low water, extends in front of the 
harbor from the eastern to the western extremity, a distance of nearly two miles. A break in 
this reef, probably a quarter of a mile wide, forms a gateway to the harbor. The space within 
the bay where ships can lie at anchor is very small, as a shoal extends some distance out from the 
eastern shore, and on the other side another coral reef runs well out into the bay. The war- 
vessels were anchored in the deep water in front of the American consulate. The Eber and 
Nipsic were nearest the shore. There were ten or twelve sailing-vessels, principally small 
schooners lying in the shallow water west of the men-of-war. The storm was preceded by 
several weeks of bad weather, and on Friday, March 15, the wind increased and there was every 
indication of a hard blow. The war-ships made preparation for it by lowering topmasts and 
making all the spars secure, and steam was also raised to guard against the possibility of the 
anchors not holding. 

The wind rose to a hurricane and was accompanied by heavy, wind-driven rain, and when 
toward morning it became evident that some smaller ships were already ashore, and that the 
war-ships were dragging their anchors in spite of every effort, the whole town was awake, and 
much of it down by the beach seeking what shelter it could from the sleet-like blast. This night 
of horror gradually lightened into dawn, when it was seen that all the war-ships had been 
swept from their former moorings and were bearing down toward the inner reef. The decks 
swarmed with men clinging to anything affording a hold. The hulls of the ships were tossing 
about like corks, and the decks were being deluged with water as every wave swept in from the 
open ocean. Several sailing-vessels had gone ashore in the western part of the bay. Those 



ao8 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



most plainly visible now were the Eber, Adler, and Nipsic, very close together and only a few 
yards from the reef. 

The little gunboat Eber was making a desperate struggle, but her doom was certain. Sud- 
denly she shot forward, the current bore her off to the right, and her bow struck the port quarter 
of the Nipsic, carrying away several feet of the Nipsic' s rail and one boat. The Eber then fell 
back and fouled with the Olga, and after that she swung around broadside to the wind, was 
lifted high on the crest of a great wave and hurled with awful force upon the reef. In an instant 
there was not a vestige of her to be seen. Every timber must have been shattered, and half the 
poor creatures aboard of her crushed to death before they felt the waters closing above their 
heads. Hundreds of people were on the beach by this time, and the work of destruction had 




'THE SAMOANS STOOD BATTLING AGAINST THE SURF, RISKING THEIR LIVES 
TO SAVE THE AMERICAN SAILORS." 



occurred within full view of them all. They stood for a moment appalled by the awful scene, 
and a cry of horror arose from the lips of every man who had seen nearly a hundred of his fel- 
low-creatures perish in an instant. Then with one accord they all rushed to the water's edge 
nearest the point where the Eber had foundered. The natives ran into the surf far beyond the 
point where a white man could have lived, and stood waiting to save any who might rise from 
the water. There were six officers and seventy men on the Eber when she struck the reef, and 
of these five officers and sixty-six men were lost. This was about six o'clock in the morning. 
During the excitement attending that calamity the other vessels had been for the time for- 
gotten, but it was soon noticed that the positions of several of them had become more alarming. 
The Adler had been swept across the bay, close to the reef, and in half an hour she was lifted 
on top of the reef and turned completely over on her side. Nearly every man was thrown into 



DANGERS OF THE DEEP 2CX) 

the water, but as almost the entire hull was exposed, all but twenty succeeded in regaining her 
deck, and the remainder were rescued toward the close of the day when almost exhausted. 

Just after the Adler struck, the attention of every one was directed toward the Nipsic. She 
was standing off the reef with her head to the wind, but the three anchors which she had out at 
the time were not holding; and orders were given to attach a hawser to a heavy eight-inch rifle 
on the forecastle and throw the gun overboard. As the men were in the act of doing this, the 
Olga bore down on the Nipsic and struck her amidships with awful force. Her bowsprit passed 
over the side of the Nipsic, and, after carrying away one boat and splintering the rail, came in 
contact with the smokestack, which was struck fairly in the center and fell to the deck with a 
crash like thunder. For a moment it was difficult to realize what had happened, and great con- 
fusion followed. The iron smokestack rolled from side to side with every movement of the vessel, 
until finally heavy blocks were placed under it. By that time the Nipsic had swung around and 
was approaching the reef, and it seemed certain that she would go down in the same way as had 
the Eber. Captain Mullan saw that any further attempt to save the vessel would be useless, so 
he gave the orders to beach her. She had a straight course of about two hundred yards to the 
sandy beach in front of the American consulate, where she stuck and stood firm. 

Two attempts to lower boats were failures and every man crowded to the forecastle. A line 
was thrown, double hawsers were soon made fast from the vessel to the shore, and the natives 
and others gathered around the lines, where the voices of officers shouting to the men on deck 
were mingled with the loud cries and singing of the Samoans. One by one, and in a very or- 
derly manner, the men of the Nipsic came down the hawsers toward the shore, but many would 
never have reached it, had it not been for the assistance of the Samoans, who, at the peril of their 
lives, stood in the boiling torrent, grasping those whose hold was broken from the rope. 

Meanwhile, the four large men-of-war, Trenton, Calliope, Vandalia, and Olga, were still afloat 
and in a comparatively safe position ; but about ten o'clock the Trento?i was seen to be in a help- 
less condition; her rudder and propeller were both gone, and there was nothing but her anchors 
to hold her up against the unabated force of the storm. The Vandalia and Calliope were also in 
danger, drifting back toward the reef near the point where lay the wreck of the Adler/ and they 
came closer together every minute, until finally the English ship struck the Vandalia and tore a 
great hole in her bow. Then Captain Kane of the Calliope detennined to try to steam out of the 
harbor as his only hope, and he at once cut loose from all his anchors. The Calliope's head swung 
around to the wind and her engines were worked to their utmost power. Great waves broke over 
her bow and she gained headway at first only inch by inch, but her speed gradually increased 
until it became evident that she could leave the harbor. This manceuver of the British ship is 
regarded as one of the most daring in naval annals — the one desperate chance offered her com- 
mander to save his vessel and the three hundred lives aboard. 

The Trenton's fires had gone out by that time, and she lay helpless almost in the path of the 
Calliope. The decks were swarming with men, but, facing death as they were, they recognized 
the heroic struggle of the British ship, and a great shout went up from aboard the Trenton. 
" Three cheers for the Calliope ! " was the sound that reached the ears of the British tars as they 
passed out of the harbor in the teeth of the storm ; and the heart of every Englishman went out 
to the brave American sailors who gave that parting tribute to the Queen's ship. 

When the excitement on the Vandalia which followed the collision with the Calliope had 
subsided, it was determined to beach the vessel, and straining every means at hand to avoid the 
dreaded reef, she moved slowly across the harbor until her bow stuck in the sand, about two 
hundred yards off shore and probably eighty yards from the stern of the Nipsic. Her engines 
were stopped and the men in the engine-room and fire-room below were ordered on deck. The 
ship swung around broadside to the shore, and it was thought at first that her position was com- 
paratively safe, as it was believed that the storm would abate in a few hours, and the two hun- 



2IO THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

dred and forty men on board could be rescued then ; but the wind seemed to increase in fury, 
and as the hull of the steamer sank lower the force of the waves grew more violent, yet no one 
on shore was able to render the least aid. 

These terrible scenes had detracted attention from the other two men-of-war still afloat; but 
about four o'clock in the afternoon the positions of the Trenton and Olga became most alarming. 
The flagship had been in a helpless condition for hours, being without rudder or propeller, while 
volumes of water poured in through her hawser-pipes. Men never fought against adverse cir- 
cumstances with more desperation than the officers and men of the Trenton displayed during 
those hours, yet the vessel was slowly forced over toward the eastern reef. Destruction seemed 
imminent, as the great vessel was pitching heavily, and her stern was but a few feet from the 
reef. This point was a quarter of a mile from shore, and if the Trenton had struck the reef there, 
it is probable that not a life would have been saved. A skilful manceuver, suggested by Lieu- 
tenant Brown, saved the ship from destruction. Every man was ordered into the port rigging, 
and the compact mass of bodies was used as a sail. The wind struck against the men in the 
rigging and forced the vessel out into the bay again. She soon commenced to drift back against 
the Olga, which was still standing off the reef and holding up against the storm more successfully 
than any other vessel in the harbor had done, and in spite of every effort on the part of both 
ships a collision took place which severely damaged both. Fortunately, the vessels drifted apart, 
whereupon the Olga steamed ahead toward the mud-flats in the eastern part of the bay, and was 
soon hard and fast on the bottom. Not a life was lost, and several weeks later the ship was 
hauled off and saved. 

The Trenton was now about two hundred feet from the sunken Vandalia, and seemed sure 
to strike her and throw into the water the men still clinging to the rigging. It was now after 
five o'clock, and the daylight was beginning to fade away. In a half hour more, the Trejiton 
had drifted to within a few yards of the Vandalia's bow, and feelings hard to describe came to 
the hundreds who watched the vessels from the shore. 

Presently the last faint rays of daylight faded away, and night came down upon the awful 
scene. The storm was still laging with as much fury as at any time during the day. The poor 
creatures who had been clinging for hours to the rigging of the Vandalia were bruised and 
bleeding ; but they held on with the desperation of men who were hanging between life and 
death. The ropes had cut the flesh on their arms and legs, and their eyes were blinded by the 
salt spray which swept over them. Weak and exhausted as they were, they would be unable to 
stand the terrible strain much longer. The final hour seemed to be upon them. The great, 
black hull of the Trenton was almost ready to crash into the stranded Vandalia and grind her to 
atoms. Suddenly a shout was borne across the waters. The sound of four hundred and fifty 
voices was heard above the roar of the tempest. " Three cheers for the Vandalia .' " was the 
cry that warmed the hearts of the dying men in the rigging. 

The shout died away upon the storm, and there arose from the quivering masts of the 
sunken ship a response so feeble it was scarcely heard upon the shore. Every heart was melted 
to pity. " God help them ! " was passed from one man to another. The cheer had hardly 
ceased when the sound of music came across the water. The Trenton's band was playing "The 
Star-Spangled Banner." The thousand men on sea and shore had never before heard strains of 
music at such a time as that. An indescribable feeling came over the Americans on the beach 
who listened to the notes of the national song mingled with the howling of the storm. 

But the collision of the Trenton and Vandalia, instead of crushing the latter vessel to pieces, 
proved to be the salvation of the men in the rigging. When the Trenton's stern finally struck 
the side of the Vandalia, there was no shock, and she swung around broadside to the sunken 
ship. This enabled the men on the Vandalia to escape to the deck of the Trenton, and in a 
short time they were all taken off. 



DANGERS OF THE DEEP 211 

The storm had abated at midnight, and when day dawned there was no further cause for 
alarm. The men were removed from the Trenton and provided with quarters on shore. 

During the next few days the evidences of the great disaster could be seen on every side. 
In the harbor were the wrecks of four men-of-war: the Trenton, Vandalia, Adler, and Eber j 
and two others, the Nipsic and Olga, were hard and fast on the beach and were hauled off with 
great difficulty. The wrecks of ten sailing-vessels also lay upon the reefs. On shore, houses 
and trees were blown down, and the beach was strewn with wreckage from one end of the town 
to the other. 

Ever since men began to go to sea lights have been placed on shore to 
guide them to a landing-place ; but in early times these were nothing more 
than fires on headlands, kindled, perhaps, by the wives and children of the 
captain and his crew of neighbors, when these mariners were expected 
home. These friendly services became a little more systematic when 
merchants began to risk their property on the water ; and on the shores of 
the Mediterranean, which we have found to be the cradle of civilized navi- 
gation and trade, harbor-beacons were erected in very early times as guides 
to a safe anchorage. 

The giant statue known as the Colossus, at Rhodes, is supposed to have been used as a 
beacon and lighthouse, a fire burning in the palm of its uplifted colossal hand at night. Al- 
though the account of the Colossus is only a matter of guesswork, it is historically true that in 
those ages of ignorant heedlessness of the need of beacons, a lighthouse was built so grand in 
proportions, so enduring in character, that it became known as one of the Seven Wonders of the 
World, and outlived all the others, save the Pyramids, by centuries, and in some ways has never 
been excelled by any similar structure in modern times, unless it be by our mammoth marble 
monument to Washington. This was the lighthouse built on the little island of Pharos by 
Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt, two hundred and eighty years before Christ, to guide 
vessels into the harbor of Alexandria. From all descriptions, it must have closely resembled our 
Washington monument ; for it was built of white stone, was square at the base, and tapered 
toward the apex. Open windows were near its top, through which the fire within could be seen 
for thirty miles by vessels at sea. 

The destruction of these beacons in the general smash and ruin that seem 
to have overtaken the world when the Roman empire went to pieces is only 
indicative of the way the darkness of barbarism returned and enveloped the 
minds as well as the works of men, until lieht broke through the clouds 
again with the rise of organized sea-powers in Western Europe. Then 
beacons were gradually rebuilt, but in almost all cases by private hands — 
the feudal lords of coast estates, the master or authorities of sea-ports, the 
monks in monasteries near dangerous landings, and now and then the king 
at his principal port, setting up marks for steering by day and lighting fires 
on dark nights. Most of the latter were hardly more than tar-barrels, 
which would burn brightly in a gale, and the better class were towers of 



212 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

stonework, on top of which a mass of coal was ignited in an iron cage, 
and kept stirred into brightness by a watcher. 

It was an easy matter to imitate such beacons, and wreckers would often 
set up false lights. Many a fearful tradition has come down of the doings 
of wreckers, not only in England and Spain, but in America and in the 
East. One of their tricks, when they saw a ship approaching in the even- 
ing, was to hang a lantern upon a horse's neck, and let him graze, well- 
hobbled, along the beach. This would appear like the rocking of a lantern 
on a vessel at rest — what is called a riding or anchor light; and, deceived 
by this promise of a safe anchorage, the stranger would not discover that 
he had been cheated until his keel struck a reef or sandbar, and the 
pirates had begun their villainous attack. It is said to have been a device 
of this kind which caused the wreck in 1812, on the Carolina coast, — whose 
islands and lagoons are reputed to have been infested by such ruffians, 
there known as "bankers," — of a vessel carrying the beautiful Theodosia 
Burr, daughter of Aaron Burr, and wife of Governor Alston of South 
Carolina. Her death at the hands of these men is illustrated on page 172. 

During the reign of Henry VIII of England, an association of mariners 
called, in short, the Guild of the Trinity was chartered and given various 
powers and privileges in connection with the newly instituted royal navy 
and dockyards. It encouraged coast-lights, and in 1573 Queen Elizabeth 
formally placed authority to erect and govern lighthouses and coast beacons 
in the hands of this corporation, and there it remains to this day ; for its 
headquarters, Trinity House, on Tower Hill, in London, are a recognized 
office of the British government, answering to our Lighthouse Board. 

It was not long before it encouraged the founding of a permanent 
light on Eddystone Shoals, a group of reefs near Plymouth, exceedingly 
dangerous because they lie precisely in the track of ships bound up or 
down the English Channel, yet almost invisible. Upon the mere standing- 
room afforded by the crest of this rock, Sir William Winstanley managed 
to erect, two hundred years ago, a tower of wood and iron trestle-work, 
bolted to its foundation and carrying a glass room or lantern containing a 
coal-grate, eighty feet above low-water mark. This was completed in 1698. 
One winter's experience convinced him that it needed strengthening, and in 
1699 a case of masonry was built about the tower, antl made solid to the 
height of twenty feet, while the whole structure was increased to the height 
of one hundred and twenty feet. Then, it is related, Winstanley boasted 
that the sea had not strength enough to tear it down, and all England 
rejoiced in so noble a beacon ; but we now know that the construction was 
faulty, in its large diameter, polygonal outline, excess of ornament, and 



DANGERS OF THE DEEP 



213 



lack of weight. While Sir William was within it making repairs, four 
years later, the memorable hurricane of November 20, 1 703, swept the coast, 
and left scarcely a trace of the tower. Its value had been proved, how- 
ever, and it was replaced, in 1 706, by a straight-sided tower of oaken 
timbers, weighted in their lower courses by stone. This was designed by 
an engineer named Rudyerd, and lasted until burned down in 1755; and 
engineers say it was better for its place than was the round, solid-based 
stone tower of Smeaton that followed it, and became so celebrated. This 
was finished in three years, and in 1760 was lighted, not by a fire, as of old, 
but by candles — the first use of such an illuminant. This truly illustrious 





ED BY R. C. COLLINS. 



THE WRECK OF THE FIRST MINOT'S LEDGE LIGHTHOUSE. 

lighthouse remained until a few years ago, when it became so racked by 
the assaults of the sea as to be unsafe. It was then replaced by the one 
that stands there to-day, rivaling its magnificent neighbor on the Biscay 
shore opposite, the lighthouse of Carduan, which was built to support a bon- 
fire of oak, but has remained to be lighted successively by oil-lamps, by 
gas-burners, and finally by electricity. 

A somewhat similar history belongs to some of the lighthouses on this 

side of the Atlantic. The first one regularly set up in the United States 

was that on the north side of the entrance to Boston harbor, erected in 

1 7 1 6 ; but many others go back to Colonial days — that on Sandy Hook, 

14* 



214 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



for instance. Perhaps the most inter- 
esting history is attached to the light 
on Minot's Ledge, in Boston harbor. 
This is a dangerous reef, concealed at 
high water and so exposed that the 
problem of lighting it was much the 
same as that presented at Eddystone, 
Bell Rock, Dhu Heartach, and other 
well known islets on the British coast. 
The first lighthouse on Minot's 
Ledge was built in 1848, and was an 
octagonal tower resting on the tops of 
eight wrought-iron piles sixty feet 
high, eight inches in diameter, and 
sunk five feet into the rock. 

These piles were braced together in many 
ways, and, as they offered less surface to the 
waves than a solid structure, the lighthouse was 
considered by all authorities upon the subject to 
be exceptionally strong. Its great test came in 
April, 185 1. On the fourteenth of that month, 
two keepers being in the lighthouse, an easterly 
gale set in, steadily increasing in force. . . . On 
Wednesday, the sixteenth, the gale had become 
a hurricane; and when at times the tower could 
be seen through the mists and sea-drift, it seemed 
to bend to the shock of the waves. At four 
o'clock that afternoon an ominous proof of the 
fury of the waves on Minot's Ledge reached the 
shore — a platform which had been built between the piles only seven feet below the floor of the 
keeper's room. The raging seas, then, were leaping fifty feet in the air. Would they reach ten 
feet higher ? — for if so, the house and the keepers were doomed. Nevertheless, when darkness 
set in the light shone out as brilliantly as ever, but the gale seemed, if possible, then to increase. 
What agony those two men must have suffered ! How that dreadful abode must have swayed 
in the irresistible hurricane, and trembled at each crashing sea ! The poor unfortunates must 
have known that if those seas, leaping always higher and higher, ever reached their house, it 
would be flung down into the ocean, and they would be buried with it beneath the waves. 

To those hopeless, terrified watchers the entombing sea came at last. At one o'clock in the 
morning the lighthouse bell was heard by those on shore to give a mournful clang, and the light 
was extinguished. It was the funeral knell of two patient heroes. 

Next day there remained on the rock only eight jagged iron stumps. 




A SCREW-PILE OCEAN LIGHTHOUSE. 



Thus, everywhere, and in all latitudes, the beacons and wooden towers 
and huge pyramids of long ago have given place to slender spires of solid 



DANGERS OF THE DEEP 



215 



masonry, holding powerful signals perhaps hundreds of feet above the 
waves, and visible as far as the curve of the earth's surface will permit. 
Yet in place of the sturdy bonfire of oak, or the huge iron cage full of coals, 
there is only a single lamp, whose rays are gathered by deep reflectors into 
a compact bundle of unwasted rays, and doubled and redoubled by rows of 
magnifying lenses until they can dart to the furthest horizon in a strong 
beam of steady light. No longer does the mariner trust to his wife to 
kindle the tar-barrel to guide him home. He knows that nowhere is his 
government more watchful of its subjects than in its lighthouse service, and 
that he may trust to having that bright signal to welcome him in the dark- 
ness, as well as he can trust his own eyes to see it. The United States 
alone expends over $2,500,000 annually in looking after her lighthouses, 
lightships, and buoys. 

Indeed, these beacons have become so thickly planted that it has been 
found necessary to distinguish between them in order to avoid mistaking 
one for another. At first this was 
done by doubling, as in the case of 
New York's "Highland Lights," or 
the twin lights of Thatcher's Island 
off Cape Ann, or even trebling them 
as at Nauset, on Cape Cod, but now 
the display is made to vary. Thus 
some of them are simply fixed white 
lights ; some are white and revolve — 
the whole lantern on the summit of the 
tower being turned on wheels by ma- 
chinery, and the flame disappears for 
a longer or shorter time; while others 
are white "flash" lights, glancing only 
for an instant, and then lost for a few 
seconds, or giving: a long- wink and 
then a short one with a space of dark- 
ness between. Some lighthouses show 
a steady red light; others, alternate red 
and white. By these colors and vary- 
ing periods of appearance and disap- 
pearance (noted on charts, and pub- 
lished by the government in a general 
seaman's guide called the " Coast Pi- 

1 f "\ „„ •„«.„.. 1 1 ■ W\- u^^u THE LIGHTHOUSE AT ST. AUGUSTINE, 

lot ), navigatorsknow which light they Florida. 




fr '^fe- 



2l6 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

are looking at when several are in sight. For daylight recognition the 
towers may be painted half black and half white, or in stripes or bands or 
spirals, like the big barber's pole in front of St. Augustine, Florida. 

It is impossible here to describe in detail the beautiful machinery by 
which the rays from the large but simple argand kerosene lamp are con- 
densed into a single beam and projected through the Fresnel system of con- 
densers and lenses, and by which the revolution and "flashing" are effected. 
Petroleum has superseded all other oils for general use, but electricity is 
now being extensively employed in the illumination of coast lights, espe- 
cially in France, where they are introducing new principles, such as pro- 
ducing lightning-like flashes with a certain recognized regularity, and 
waving stupendous search-light beams in the sky, so that the approach to 
the coast may be seen when the land and lighthouse themselves are still 
below the horizon. If you have an opportunity to go into the lantern of a 
lighthouse, by all means take advantage of it; and if you can be there when 
a storm is raging, or when, on some misty night, the lantern is besieged by 
migrating birds, you will never forget the scene. 

On some especially dangerous — because hidden — shoals, reefs, or bars, 
like those off Nantucket or the extreme point of Sandy Hook, it may be out 
of the question or bad policy to erect a lighthouse. Here its place is taken 
by anchoring a stout vessel, built to withstand the severest weather, and 
arranged to carry lanterns at its mastheads. 

These are called "lightships," and they are manned by a crew of 
keepers who have a very monotonous and uncomfortable time of it ; yet in 
some cases men have spent twenty years or more in the service. 

The most desolate and dangerous lightship station is that of No. i, 
Nantucket. " Upon this tossing island, out of sight of land, exposed to the 
fury of every tempest, and without a message from home during all the 
stormy months of winter, and sometimes even longer, ten men, braving the 
perils of wind and wave, and the worse terrors of isolation, trim the lamps 
whose light warns thousands of vessels from certain destruction, and hold 
themselves ready to save life when the warning is vain." 

Seven years ago Mr. Gustav Kobbe, and the artist, William Taber, 
spent several days on the lightship and gave a graphic account of the life 
there, which I wish I were able to quote in full. 

The anchorage is twenty-four miles out at sea beyond Sankaty head, at 
the extremity of the shoals and rips which make all that space of water be- 
yond the visible coast of Nantucket fatal to ships, hundreds of which are 
known to have been beaten to pieces on its treacherous bars. She is 
moored to a 6500-pound mushroom anchor by a chain two inches in thick- 



DANGERS OF THE DEEP 



217 



ness, yet she has been torn adrift twenty-three times, and has wandered 
widely before returning or being overtaken. 

"No. 1, Nantucket New South Shoals," to quote Mr. Kobbe, 



is a schooner of two hundred and seventy-five tons, one hundred and three feet long, with 
twenty-four feet breadth of beam, and stanchly built of white and live oak. She has two hulls, 
the space between them being filled through holes at short intervals in the inner side of the bul- 
warks with salt. . . . She has fore-and-aft lantern-masts seventy-one feet high, including top- 
masts, and directly behind each of the lantern masts a mast for sails forty-two feet high. 
Forty-four feet up the lantern-masts are day-marks, reddish brown hoop-iron gratings, which 
enable other vessels to sight the lightship more readily. The lanterns are octagons of glass in 
copper frames five feet in diameter, four feet nine inches high, with the masts as centers. Each 
pane of glass is two feet long and two feet three inches high. There are eight lamps, burning 




LIGHTSHIP NO. 1, NANTUCKET NEW SOUTH SHOALS. 



a fixed white light, with parabolic reflectors in each lantern, which weighs, all told, about a 
ton. Some nine hundred gallons of oil are taken aboard for service during the year. The 
lanterns are lowered into houses built around the masts. The house around the main lantern- 
mast stands directly on the deck, while the foremast lantern-house is a heavily-timbered frame 
three feet high. This is to prevent its being washed away by the waves the vessel ships when 
she plunges into the wintry seas. When the lamps have been lighted and the roofs of the lan- 
tern-houses opened, — they work on hinges, and are raised by tackle, — the lanterns are hoisted 
by means of winches to a point about twenty-five feet from the deck. Were they to be hoisted 
higher they would make the ship top-heavy. 

A conspicuous object forward is the large fog-bell swung ten feet above the deck. The 
prevalence of fog makes life on the South Shoal Lightship especially dreary. During one season 
fifty-five days out of seventy were thick, and for twelve consecutive days and nights the bell 
was kept tolling at two-minute intervals. 

The actual work to be done is small, the daily cleaning of the lamps re- 
quiring only two or three hours, and other chores being very light, and the 



218 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



men nearly die of loneliness and "nothing to do." It is pathetic to read 
how intense and friendly an interest they take in a single red buoy anchored 
near them ; and they admit that fog is dreaded more because it hides this 
neighbor than for any other reason. 

Mr. Kobbe tells us that the emotional stress under which this crew labors 
can hardly be realized by any one who has not been through a similar 
experience. 

The sailor on an ordinary ship has at least the inspiration of knowing that he is bound for 
somewhere ; that in due time his vessel will be laid on her homeward course ; that storm and fog 
are but incidents of the voyage : he is on a ship that leaps forward full of life and energy with every 
lash of the tempest. But no matter how the lightship may plunge and roll, no matter how strong 
the favoring gales may be, she is still anchored two miles southeast of the New South Shoal: 




CLEANING THE LAMPS ON A LIGHTSHIP. 



Besides enduring the hardships incidental to their duties aboard the lightship, the South 
Shoal crew have done noble work in saving life. While the care of the lightship is considered 
of such importance to shipping that the crew are instructed not to expose themselves to dangers 
outside their special line of duty, and they would therefore have the fullest excuse for not risking 
their lives in rescuing others, they have never hesitated to do so. When, a few winters ago, 
the City of Newcastle went ashore on one of the shoals near the lightship, and strained herself so 
badly that although she floated off, she soon filled and went down stern foremost, all hands, 
twenty-seven in number, were saved by the South Shoal crew and kept aboard of her over two 
weeks, until the story of the wreck was signaled to some passing vessel and the lighthouse tender 
took them off. This is the largest number saved at one time by the South Shoal, but the 
lightship crew have faced great danger on several other occasions. 

This is, perhaps, the extreme picture of lightship life, but apart from 
the prolonged isolation and continuous roughness of the water, the experi- 



DANGERS OF THE DEEP 



2 19 




THE FOG-BELL. 



ences of the men off Sandy Hook and elsewhere 
are not greatly removed from it, and no philanthropy 
is more worthy of support than that which seeks to 
mitigate the loneliness of these exiles by providing 
them with reading matter. The Lighthouse Board 
provides a small circulating library for these ships, 
and contributions of books and files of illustrated 
periodicals will be gratefully received and put to 
good use by the Superintendent of the Lighthouse 
Service in Washington. 

But there are times — and they occur very fre- 
quently in northern waters — when fogs which no 
light can penetrate envelop sea and coast, and that 
is the most dangerous of all times to an approaching 
ship. The only means by which a warning can 
be given, in such an emergency, is by sound. In 
many places bells are rung, but often the place to 
be avoided is so situated that the roar of the surf 

would drown a bell's note, and then fog-horns are blown. These fog-horns 
are of a size so immense, and voices so stentorian, that it requires a steam 
engine to blow them, and they utter a booming, hollow blast, a dismal note 
as we hear it when we are safe on the land, but sweet to the anxious captain 
whose vessel is laboring through the gloom under close-reefed topsails, and 
uncertain of her exact position. One kind of these horns is very complicated 
in its structure, and screeches in a rough, broken blare, a note far-reaching 
beyond any smooth, whistling sound that could be made. This shriek is so 
hideous, so ear-splitting, when heard near at hand, that no name bad enough 
to express it could be found; so its inventors went to the other extreme, and 
called it a siren, after those most enchanting of sweet singers who tried to 
entice Ulysses out of his course. This name is opposite in a double sense, 
indeed, for the sirens of old lured sailors to wreck, while our siren hoarsely 
bids them keep off. Finally, buoys, which at first were simply tight casks, 
but now are usually made of boiler-iron, are anchored on small reefs, to 
which are hung bells, rung constantly by the tossing of their support; and 
on other reefs buoys are fixed having a hollow cap so arranged that when a 
big wave rushes over, it shuts in a body of air, under great and sudden 
pressure, which can only escape through a whistle in the top of the cap, ut- 
tering a long warning wail to tell its position. 

It is in such times as this that the pilot comes out strong. 

A pilot is a man who has made himself thoroughly acquainted with 



220 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 




A SIREN RIGGED UPON A MERCHANT STEAMSHIP. 

certain waters where navigation is dangerous, and who is licensed by some 
proper authority, after training and examination, to direct vessels in safety 
in entering harbors or passing through other intricate places. A ship-cap- 
tain may be an excellent navigator, but he is not expected to know every 
rock and sandbar crouching under the waves, and all the twistings and 
turnings of the entrance and channel of a foreign harbor, especially as these 
channels are subject to constant change. In this country, indeed, although 
coasting-vessels may refuse a pilot, the law will not permit captains coming 
from or bound to a foreign port to do so ; and if any accident happens 
when no pilot is aboard the insurance money will not be paid, and the ship's 
officers may be punished. 

Pilots, then, are important men and are able to charge very high prices 
for their services (generally rated according to the draft of the vessel), and 
their profession is so organized and guarded that not only must a man be 
thoroughly competent, but he must wait for a vacancy in the regular 
number before he will be admitted to their ranks. 

Their method of work is very exciting. A dozen or so together will 
form the crew of a trim, stanch schooner, provisioned tor a fortnight or 
more, which can outsail anything but a racing yacht, and is built to ride 
safely through the highest seas. A few steamers are coming into use, but 
the procedure is much the same. You will now and then see one of these 
beautiful little vessels sailing up the quiet harbor, threading its way 
through the black steamers and sputtering tug-boats and great ships, as a 
shy and graceful girl walks among the guests at a lawn party, and you 
know from its air as well as the big number on its white mainsail that it is a 
pilot boat, even if it does not carry the regular pilot-flag, which in the 
United States is simply the "union" or starry canton of the ensign. 

But these fine schooners and the brave men they carry are rarely in 
port. Their time is spent far in the offing of the harbor, cruising back and 



DANGERS OF THE DEEP 



221 



forth in wait for incoming ships, and the New York pilots often go two and 
three hundred miles out to sea, and in storms may be blown much farther 
away. Other pilot-boats are waiting also, and the lookout at the reeling 




BURNING A "FLARE" ON A PILOT-BOAT. 



mast-head must keep the very keenest watch upon the horizon. Suddenly 
he catches sight of a white speck which his practised eye tells him is a 
ship's top-sails, or of a blur upon the sky that advertises a steamer's 



222 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

approach. The schooner's head is instantly turned toward it, and all the 
canvas is crowded on that she will bear, for away off at the right a second 
pilot-boat, well down, is also seen to be aiming at the same point and 
trying hard to win. 

The first pilots of New York harbor were stationed at Sandy Hook, 
and visited incoming vessels in whale-boats ; and many a stately British 
frigate or colonial trader was forced to wait anxiously outside the bar, 
rolling and tossing in the sea-way, or tacking hither and yon, hoping for a 
glimpse of that tiny speck where flashing oars told of the coming pilot. It 
is in this way, as the late Mr. J. O. Davidson, the artist, who knew all 
about such things, told us in "St. Nicholas" (January, 1890), that many 
vessels are still met, off some of our smaller harbors, and at the mouth of 
the Mississippi River. There the waters of the great river pouring into 
the Gulf of Mexico through the Port Eads Jetties make a turbulent swell 
with foam-crested billows that roll the stoutest ship's gunwale under, even 
in calm weather ; yet the little whale-boats, swift and buoyant, dash out 
bravely in a race for the sail on the distant horizon, for there are two pilot- 
stations at the Jetties, and it is "first come first engaged." 

Sometimes, on the other hand, it is the ship that looks for the pilot, 
cruising about with the code-letters P T flying from her signal-halyards in 
token of her need. She may even run past a pilot-boat in the night and 
get into danger without being aware of it. To prevent this, says Mr. 
Davidson, the pilots burn what is known as a "flare" or torch, consisting 
of a bunch of cotton or lamp-wick dipped in turpentine, on the end of a 
short handle. It burns with a brilliant flame, lighting up the sea for a great 
distance and throwing the sails and number of the pilot-boat into strong 
relief against the darkness. On a dark clear night, the reddish glare 
which the signal projects on the clouds looks like distant heat lightning. 

Having sighted his vessel, the pilot whose turn it is to go on duty hur- 
ries below and packs the valise which contains such things as he wishes to 
take home, for this is his method of going ashore ; and when he has de- 
parted, if he is the last one of the pilot-crew, the little vessel returns herself 
to port in charge of the sailing-master, cook, and "boy," to refit and take 
on a new set of men. 

The storm may be howling in the full force of the winter's fury, and the 
waves running " mountain-high," but the pilot must get aboard by some 
means. It is rough weather indeed when his mates cannot launch their 
yawl and row him to where he can climb up the stranger's side with the aid 
•of a friendly rope's end. 

Yet frequently this is out of the question. Then a " whip " is rigged 



DANGERS OF THE DEEP 



22' 



beyond the end of a lee yard-arm, carrying a rope rove through a snatch- 
block, and having a noose at its end. The steamer slows her engines, or 




A PILOT BOARDING A STEAMER. 



the ship heaves to, and the pilot-schooner; under perfect control, runs up 
under the lee of the big ship, as near as she dares in the gale. Then, just 



224 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

at the right instant, a man on the ship's yard hurls the rope, it is caught by 
the schooner, the pilot slips one leg through the bowline-noose, and a 
second afterward the schooner has swept on and he is being hoisted 
up to the yard-arm, but generally not in time to save himself a good 
ducking in the coaming of some big roller. Going on shipboard in this 
fashion is not favorable to an imposing effect ; nevertheless, the pilot is 
welcomed by both crew and passengers, who admire his courage and 
trust his skill, but smile at the high hat beloved of all pilots. 

Now the pilot is master — stands ahead of the captain even — and his 
orders are absolute law. He inspects the vessel to form his opinion of how 
she will behave, and then goes to the wheel or stands where best he can 
give his orders to the steersman and to the men in the fore-chains heaving 
the sounding lead. He must never abandon his post, he must never lose 
his control of the ship, or make a mistake as to its position in respect to the 
lee-shore, or fail to be equal to every emergency. If it is too dark and foggy 
and stormy to see, he must feel ; and if he cannot do this he must have the 
faculty of going right by intuition. To fail is to lose his reputation if not 
his life. This is what is expected of pilots, and this is what they actually 
do in a hundred cases, the full details of any one of which would make a 
long and thrilling tale of adventurous fighting for life. 

It is to help pilots and navigators of all sorts to avoid the perils that beset 
them that governments not only spend large sums in surveying coasts and 
harbors, publishing charts and descriptions, and maintaining lighthouses and 
lightships, but mark out bars and channels with floating guides, and their 
borders with shore-beacons and "ranges," to form so many finger-posts 
for the right road. Were it not for these sign-posts no ship could safely 
enter any commercial harbor in the world ; and it will be valuable to quote 
somewhat from an article, with capital illustrations, written for " St. Nich- 
olas" (March, 1896) by an officer of the United States Navy, Lieut. John M. 
Ellicott, since it describes how the long, winding approaches to one of the 
greatest ports of the world are marked out by day and by night — I mean 
the harbor of New York. 

Suppose, then, that we are on a big transatlantic steamer approaching the United States 
from Europe. . . . Having secured his pilot, it is the captain's next aim to make a "land-fall" 
— that is to say, he wishes to come in sight of some well-known object on shore, which, being 
marked down on his chart, will show him just where he is and how he must steer to find the 
entrance to the harbor. 

A special lighthouse is usually the object sought, and in approaching New York harbor it is 
customary for steamers from Europe to first find, or sight, Fire Island Lighthouse. This is on a 
sandy island near the coast of Long Island. When, therefore, the liner steams in sight of Fire 
Island Light she hoists two signals, one of which tells her name and the other the welfare of 



DANGERS OF THE DEEP 



22 : 






DAY-MARKS IN NEW YORK HARBOR. 

those on board. The operator then telegraphs to the ship's agents in New York that she has 
been sighted, and that all on board are well or otherwise. [Other despatches go to the 
newspapers, who have observing stations and telegraph arrangements here and at Sandy Hook.] 

The ship's course is then laid to reach the most prominent object at the harbor entrance, 
in this case Sandy Hook Lightship. She is easily recognized. The course from this lightship 
to the harbor entrance is laid down on the chart " west-northwest, one quarter west," and, steer- 
ing this course, a group of three buoys is reached. One is a large " nun," or cone-shaped, buoy, 
painted black and white in vertical stripes ; another has a triangular framework built on it, and 
in the top of this framework is a bell which tolls mournfully as the buoy is rocked; while the 
third is surmounted by a big whistle. . . . These mark the point where ocean ends and harbor 
begins, and can be found in fair weather or in fog by their color and shape, or noise. They are 
the mid-channel buoys at the entrance to Gedney Channel, the deep-water entrance to New 
York harbor. Here it may be noted that mid-channel buoys in all harbors in the United States 
are painted black and white in vertical stripes, and, being in mid-channel, should be passed close 
to by all deep-draft vessels. At this point the pilot takes charge. 

Ahead the water seems now to be dotted in the most indiscriminate manner with buoys and 
beacons, and on the shores around the harbor, far and near, there seem to be almost a dozen 
lighthouses. If, however, you watch the buoys as the pilot steers the ship between them, you 
will soon see that all those passed on the right-hand side are red, and all on the left are black. 
Where more than one channel runs through the same harbor, the different channels are marked 
by buoys of different shapes. Principal channels are marked by " nun " buoys, secondary chan- 
nels by " can " buoys, and minor channels by " spar " buoys. 

Gedney Channel is a short, dredged lane leading over the outer bar, or barrier of sand, which 
lies between harbor and ocean. Its buoys are lighted at night by electricity, through submarine 
cables, the red ones with red lights, the black ones with white lights. Moreover, a little light- 
house off to the left, known as Sandy Hook Beacon, has in its lamp a red sector which throws a 






NUN BUOYS. 



CAN BUOYS. 



SPAR BUOYS. 



226 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

red beam just covering Gedney Channel. Thus this channel can be passed through in safety by 
night as well as by day. If it is night the pilot knows when he is through it by the change of 
color in Sandy Hook Beacon light from red to white. Then he looks away past that light to his 
left for two fixed white lights on the New Jersey shore and hillside, known as Point Comfort 
Beacon and Waackaack Beacon, for he knows that by keeping them in range, that is to say, in 
line with one another and himself, and by steering toward them he is in the main ship channel. 
By day the main ship channel buoys would guide him, as in Gedney Channel, but at night these 
buoys are not lighted. 

Only a short distance is now traversed when the ship comes to a point where two unseen 
channels meet. This is indicated by a buoy having a tall spindle, or " perch," surmounted by a 
latticed square. From here, if she continues on her course, she will remain in the main ship- 
channel, which, although deeper, is a more circuitous route into port; so, if she does not draw 
too much water, she is turned somewhat to the right, and, leaving the buoy with the perch and 
square on her right, because it is red, she is steered between the buoys which mark Swash 
Channel. If it were night this channel would be revealed by two range-lights on the Staten 
Island shore and hillside, known as Elm Tree Beacon and New Dorp 
Beacon, both being steady-burning, white lights; but we are entering 
by daylight, and when half-way through Swash Channel we notice a 
buoy painted red and black in horizontal stripes. To this is given a 
wide berth by the pilot. It is an "obstruction" buoy marking a shoal 
spot or a wreck. 

Channel buoys are all numbered in sequence from 
the sea inward, the red ones with even, and the black 
~~%. ones with odd numbers, and the larger ones are an- 

obstruction buoy chored with " mushrooms " while the smaller have " sink- 
ers " of iron or stone. They are made of iron plates in 
water-tight compartments, so that if punctured by an over-running ship or 
some other accident, they will not be likely to sink. In harbors where ice 
forms in winter, large summer buoys are replaced in winter by a smaller sort 
less liable to be torn adrift. Buoys do go adrift, however, now and then, and 
sometimes take a voyage across the ocean or far down the coast before they can 
be found by the tenders of the Lighthouse Service, which is constantly looking 
after these and other marks. Lieutenant Ellicott tells us that all changes in 
the position of buoys or lightships, or the placing of new buoys to mark a 
change of channel, or an obstruction, are published promptly in pamphlets 
called " Notices to Mariners," which are distributed as quickly as possible 
through well organized means of communication. A few years ago one of 
the largest of our handsome new cruisers was approaching New York 
harbor from the West Indies in a light fog. Sandy Hook Lightship had 
been found, the usual course laid for Gedney Channel, and the ship was 
steaming onward at full speed, her captain, having been inspector of that 
very lighthouse district but a short time before, feeling that he knew his 
way into that port better than the most experienced pilot. Presently, 




DANGERS OF THE DEEP 227 

however, he was startled by the alarming cry of breakers ahead! A large 
hotel also loomed up, and, as the ship was backed full speed astern, all 
hands realized that they had barely escaped running high and dry on Rock- 
away Beach. When the vessel got into port it was learned that Sandy 
Hook Lightship had been moved considerably from its old position, and 
that the notice of this change had failed to reach the captain of the cruiser 
before he sailed from the West Indies. 

Shipwrecks still occur, however, in spite of lighthouses and sirens and 
buoys and coast-surveys; therefore we add to our precautions arrangements 
to help those cast away. Societies to save wrecked persons have existed, 
it is said, for many centuries in China, but in Europe they are hardly a 
hundred years old. The early humane societies, like that of Great Britain, 




A WHISTLING BUOY, OUT OF COMMISSION. 

placed life-boats and rescuing gear in certain shore towns, and organized 
crews, who promised to go out to the aid of any lost ship, and to take good 
care of the persons rescued. 

In America, however, our coasts are so extensive, and so much of the 
dangerous part of them is far away from villages, or even a farmhouse, that 
the government has been obliged to do whatever was necessary. Thus 
came about the Life Saving Service, which now has its stations close 
together along our whole sea-coast, and upon the great lakes, covering 
more than ten thousand miles in all. 

Each of these stations is a snug house on the beach, tenanted by a 
keeper and six men, all of whom are chosen for their skill in swimming, and 
in handling a boat in the surf — something every man who "follows the sea" 
cannot do successfully. Beaching a boat through surf is an art. 

During all the season, from October till May, two men from each station 
are incessantly patrolling the beach at night, each walking until he meets the 



221 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



patrolman from the next station. No matter how foul the weather, these 
watchmen are out until daylight looking for disasters. The moment they 
discover a vessel ashore, or likely to become disabled, they summon their 
companions and hasten to launch their boat. These boats are of two kinds. 
On the lakes and on the steep Pacific coast is used the very heavy Eng- 
lish life-boat, fitted with masts and sails if necessary, which a steam tug is 

required to tow to the scene of the 
wreck, unless it is close in shore. 
But upon our flat, sandy Atlantic 
beaches only a lighter kind of surf- 
boat, made of cedar, can be handled. 
This is built with air-cases at each 
end and under the thwarts, so that 
it cannot sink. The station men 
drag it on its low wagon to the 
scene of its use, unless horses are to 
be had, and when it is launched 
they sit at the six oars, each 
with his cork belt buckled 
around him, and his eye 
fixed on the steersman, who 
stands in the stern, ready 
to obey his slightest motion 
of command, for rowing 
through the angry waves 
that clash themselves on a 
storm-beaten beach is a mat- 
ter requiring extraordinary 
skill and strength. Then, when 
the vessel is reached, comes an- 

PATROLMEN EXCHANGING THEIR CHECKS. othgr strugg l e to avoid being 

struck and crushed by the plunging ship, or the broken spars and rigging 
pounding about the hull. But skill and caution generally enable the crew 
to rescue the unfortunate castaways one by one, though frequently several 
trips must be made, in each one of which every surfman risks his life, and in 
many a sad case loses it; yet there is no lack of men for the service. 

It is a common occurrence, however, that the sea will run so high that 
no boat could possibly be launched. Then the only possibility of rescue for 
the crew is by means of a line which shall bridge the space between the ship 
and the land before the hull falls to pieces. We read in old tales of wrecks 




DANGERS OF THE DEEP 



22Q 



of how some brave seaman would tie a light line around his waist, and dare 
the dreadful waves, and the more dreadful undertow, to save his comrades. 
If he got safely upon the beach, he drew a hawser on shore and made it 
fast. Now we do not ask this ; but with a small cannon made for the pur- 




SAVING A SAILOR BY MEANS OF THE BREECHES-BUOY. 



pose, a strong cord attached to a cannon-ball is fired over the ship, even 
though it be several hundred yards distant. Seizing this line as it falls across 
their vessel, the imperiled sailors haul to themselves a larger line, called a 
"whip," which they fasten in a tackle-block in such a way that a still heavier 
cable can be stretched between the wreck and the land and made fast. 

IS* 



230 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



Then by means of a small side-line and pulleys a double canvas bag, shaped 
like a pair of knee-breeches, is sent back and forth between the ship and 
the shore, bringing a man each time, until all are saved. Should there be 
many -persons on board, though, and great haste necessary, instead of the 
breeches-buoy a small covered metallic boat, called the life-car, is sent out, 
into which several persons may get at once. These varied means are so 
skilfully employed, that now hardly one in two hundred is lost of those 
whose lives are endangered on the American coasts. 



*r-> 



S 




THE SELF-RIGHTING LIFE-BOAT. 




CHAPTER XI 

FISHING AND OTHER MARINE INDUSTRIES 

HE grandest sea-chase is that after the whale — the most 
gigantic of mammals, the most extraordinary in appearance 
and habits, and the most valuable to man, for the capture 
of one may mean ten times as much reward as the ivory of 
an elephant or the rarest otter-skin would afford, and per- 
haps a hundred times as much, if ambergris be found within its body. 
Men have had the hardihood to chase these huge and often savage crea- 
tures in their own turbulent element, and with the most primitive wea- 
pons, ever since the art of navigation was acquired. 

The Japanese and other Asiatics of the western shore of the North 
Pacific have dared to go out in rowboats and attack the largest whales 
since the origin of their traditions, and they had a method of entangling 
these leviathans in nets, which must have produced exciting scenes, as the 
monster struggled amid the bloody turmoil of waters to free himself from the 
innumerable connected cords that embarrassed his movements, rather than 
subdued his strength, until his life ebbed away through a hundred wounds. 
On the Alaskan coast, and southward as far as Oregon, the Indians, 
and especially those of the Queen Charlotte Islands and the coasts of the 
Strait of Juan de Fuca, were accustomed, hundreds, perhaps thousands of 
years ago, to go far away into the ocean in their dug-out canoes, searching 
for and spearing the whales with lances made of flint or bone, having 
detachable barbed heads. These were attached to shafts by rawhide lines, 
and to the shafts were attached buoys of large inflated bladders. When the 
animal was struck, the heavy pole would drive the lancehead through the 
skin and then fall off. The barbs would not only hold the instrument there, 
but cause it to work deeper and deeper, and the whale, darting away or 
diving, would be so impeded by dragging the poles and buoys after him, 
that he would soon return to receive other darts, and so, between loss of 
blood and exhaustion, would ultimately be killed. It is extremely interest- 



232 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



ing to read the stories, gathered by early travelers from the lips of the 
Indians, — old Haidas or Makahs are living yet who have taken part in 




AN OLD WHALER. 



such nerve-testing canoe-chases, — of their fights with this gigantic foe far 
from land, and their hair's-breadth escapes ; and it is not strange that 
many quaint ceremonies were devised to placate the waters and the 



FISHING AND OTHER MARINE INDUSTRIES 233 

power of the whale-god in advance, and to honor the sea-hunters when 
they returned. 

The Greenlanders and Eastern Eskimos do not seem to have been able 
in their small skin boats to conquer the largest sort of whales, but the 
smaller ones, such as the white whale, fell to their spears in a similar way ; 
and they took great pains to secure any dead or stranded cetacean that 
came within their reach, the bones of which were as valuable to them, in 
the absence of wood, as were the flesh, oil, and sinews. 

The history of European whaling begins with the excursions of the 
Basques, who, as long ago at least as the tenth century, were accustomed 
to £0 out from their shore-towns in search of the southern right whale 
which frequents the Bay of Biscay and its offing. Doubtless their boats 
were small, half-decked, lugger-rigged " shyppes," carrying ten to fifteen 
men, and looking much like many of the Channel fishermen of to-day. This 
" fishery " supplied all Europe during the Middle Ages with the whalebone 
and oil which were among the luxuries of the rich at that time ; but by the 
time the sixteenth century had arrived, whales had become so scarce in the 
Eastern Atlantic — where now they are almost extinct — that this industry 
must have ceased had not the Cabots shown the way to Newfoundland, to 
whose shores the Basques at once extended their voyages with excellent 
results, for in those days whales were commonly seen all along the American 
shore of the North Atlantic. But this remote fishery would have been too 
precarious and costly to be of great consequence had it not been for the 
early efforts, related in Chapter V, to find a passage to the East north of 
the continents. The earliest of these failed, but they brought back reports 
that the edge of the frozen sea abounded in whales, and men rushed into 
this newly discovered field of wealth, as, centuries later, they abandoned 
everything in headlong haste to go to the gold-fields of California, Au- 
stralia, South Africa or the Yukon Valley. 

The English did their best to monopolize the whale fishery at once, but 
the Dutch sent war-vessels, and in a fleet action almost at the edge of the 
ice in 161 8 the Dutch conquered and opened the seas to all comers, while 
separate districts on the coast of Spitzbergen were assigned to each nation- 
ality. The English interest in the fishery declined, but the Dutch increased 
their attention to it, taking over one thousand whales each year. "About 
1680," we read, " they had two hundred and sixty vessels and fourteen thou- 
sand seamen employed. Their fishery continued to flourish on almost as 
extensive a scale until 1770, when it began to decline, and finally, owing to 
the war, came to an end before the end of the century." The Germans were 
always associated with them, and continued to send a whaling fleet to 



= 34 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



Barentz Sea and the Jan Mayen waters until 1873. Meanwhile the Green- 
land whaling-grounds had begun to attract British whalemen, followed by 
the Danes in the early part of the last century ; then this local industry fell 






1^sS:6>J}av/dso// 



WHALERS TRYING OIL OUT OF BLUBBER. 



off, but was revived about 1800, remained prosperous for many years, and is 
still the support of Peterhead and a few other Scotch ports. 

The abundance of whales near the coast was one of the prime induce- 



FISHING AND OTHER MARINE INDUSTRIES 235 

ments held out to colonists by North America, where whales often ap- 
peared close to the shore, or in harbors, as occasionally they do yet. 
Here, at first, whale-fishing was pursued wholly in rowboats launched from 
the beach. Many shore towns owned whaleboats and gear, each with its 
trained crew, and some kept a regular lookout, day by day, whose duty it 
was promptly to announce the appearance of any whale in the offing. Such 
was the case at Southampton, Long Island, for many years, and even now, 
occasionally, the town-crew there rushes away through the breakers after 
some stray visitor amid the excitement of the whole neighborhood, but this 
happens only at intervals of several years. 

Before the end of the seventeenth century, however, the people of Nan- 
tucket Island were wont to cruise about the neighboring^ ocean for rio-ht 
whales, their voyage lasting six weeks or so as a rule, and now and then 
they would pick up a sperm whale. By the middle of the eighteenth 
century, however, sperm whaling was no longer profitable in the Northern 
Atlantic, while the Greenland grounds were overrun by European ships. 
American fishermen therefore turned their attention to the West, and for 
many years confined themselves mainly to catching the sperm whale, find- 
ing at first their best " grounds " in the south-middle Pacific. When the 
War of Independence came on, Nantucket was the leading whaling-port of 
the country, but all the New England towns were more or less engaged, 
and no less than three hundred and sixty vessels, large and small, were out. 
The Revolutionary War nearly destroyed the industry, and before it could 
well revive, the War of 1812 again subjected the whaling-ships to capture 
by English privateers and men-of-war all over the world. After that, how- 
ever, they spread all over the Southern seas, and between 1840 and 1850 
more than seven hundred were flying the flag of the United States. 

The whaling vessels were large, stanch craft, usually bark-rigged, dis- 
tinguished by their old-fashioned shape, weather-stained, smoky appear- 
ance, enormous boats swinging from end to end of the ship from lofty 
davits, and try-works forward. They kept longer than any one else many 
relics of rigging, custom, and language, belonging to the seamanship of 
earlier generations ; and no sea-peril could daunt either the vessel or its 
crew. They would sail on voyages lasting two or three years, and some- 
times would circumnavigate the globe and return without having touched at 
a port. As a rule, however, they would gain part of a cargo, and then go 
to some port, ship it to London or New York, and refit for a new voyage. 
The profits of a trip were thus very great sometimes, but other trips were 
attended only by expense and misfortune. 

The capture of whales in those days had more danger if not more ex- 




- 



Pi 

o 
fa 

u 

< 

(4 



FISHING AND OTHER MARINE INDUSTRIES 237 

citement than now, for the only method was by rowing after them, helped 
by the sails, in the 28-foot, double-ended rowboats made for the purpose (of 
which every vessel carried six or eight), and sinking into their vitals darts 
and lances until they died. They were then towed to the vessel's side, held 
by tackle from the yard-arms in a suitable position, and cut up. The oil in 
early days was packed in casks, but later has been run into iron tanks built 
into the hold, after having been tried out of the blubber in the great caldrons 
set in brick on the forward deck, which gave a whaler so peculiar an appear- 
ance, at all times, and would lead any one to suppose her on fire while the 
process of trying-out was going on, and the great volumes of black smoke 
caused by the use of whale-fat and waste as fuel were drifting to leeward. 

One of the best accounts of a chase published is that by the late Temple 
Brown, of the United States Fish Commission, in an article in "The Cen- 
tury" for February, 1893, from which I am permitted to make an extract: 

While cruising on the coast of New Zealand, one day about 11.30 a. m., the lookout at the 
main hailed the deck with : " Thar sh' b-1-o-w-s ! Thar sh' b-1-o-w-s ! Blows ! B-1-o-w-s ! " 

" Where away ? " promptly responded the officer of the deck. 

" Four points off the lee bow ! Blows sperm-whales! Blows! Blows!" came from aloft. 

" How far off? " shouted the captain, roused out of his cabin by the alarm, as his head and 
shoulders appeared above deck. " Where are they heading ? " he continued, as he went up the 
rigging on all-fours. 

" Blows about two miles and a half off, sir," replied Mr. Braxton, the mate, looking off the 
lee-bow with his glasses, "and coming to windward, I believe." 

" Call all hands ! " said the captain. " Haul up the mainsail, and back your main-yards. 
Hurry up there ! Get your boats ready, Mr. Braxton ! " 

At the first alarm the men came swarming up the companionway of the forecastle, divesting 
themselves of superfluous articles of clothing, and scattering them indiscriminately about the 
deck. Rolling up their trousers, and girding their loins with their leather belts, taking a double 
reef until supper-time, they flitted nervously here and there in their bare legs and feet, observing 
every order with the greatest alacrity, and holding themselves in readiness to go over the side of 
the vessel at the word of command. There is a certain order, systematic action, or red tape, ob- 
served on all first-class whaling-vessels, however imperfectly disciplined some of the boat-crews 
may be. The captain indicates the boats he wishes to attack the whales; the boat-header (an 
officer) and the boat-steerer (the harpooner) take their proper positions in the boat, the former at 
the stern and the latter at the bow, while suspended in the davits. At the proper moment the 
davit-tackles are run out by men on deck, and the boats drop with a lively splash ; the sprightly 
oarsmen meantime leap the ship's rail, and, swinging themselves down the side of the vessel, 
tumble promiscuously into the boats just about the time the latter strike the water. Although it 
may be said that there is a general scramble, there is not the least confusion. Every person and 
thing has the proper place assigned to it in a whaleboat ; the officer has full command, but he is 
subject to the orders of the captain, who signals his instructions from the ship, usually by means 
of the light sails. The manner of going on to a whale, the number of men and their positions in 
the boat, and the kind of instruments and the manner of using them, have been perpetuated in 
this fishery for more than two centuries. 

" Clear away the larboard and bow boats ! " shouted the captain. " Get in ahead of the 



238 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

whales, Mr. Braxton, if you can. Here, cook, you and cooper lend a hand there with them 
davy-taycles. Are you ready ? Hoist and swing your boats." 

.Down went the larboard boat and the bow boat almost simultaneously. 

"Shove off! Up sail! Out oars! Pull ahead!" were the orders from Mr. Braxton, the 
officer of the larboard boat, in rapid succession. " Let 's get clear of the ship. Come, bear a 
hand with that sail, do," he added, coaxingly, with his eye on the third mate's boat. " Don't 
let 'em get in ahead of us." 

"All right, sir; here you go, sheet," replied Vera, the harpooner, a well-developed and in- 
telligent American-Portuguese, with his accustomed good spirits. 

Hastily laying aside his paddle, like a tiger couchant, with eager eyes upon his prey, he 
picked up his harpoon, and stood erect, his tall, muscular frame swaying above the head of the 
boat. He placed his thigh in the clumsy-cleat, — a contrivance to steady the harpooner against 
the motions of the waves, — and with his long, springy arms turned and balanced the harpoon- 
pole previous to poising the instrument in the air. . . . Under the motive power of sail and 
paddle the space between the boat and whale was rapidly diminishing, and apparently they 
would soon come into collision. The enormous head of the cetacean, as it plowed a wide fur- 
row in the ocean, and the tall column of vapor rising from the blow-holes, as it spouted ten or 
twelve feet in the air, were to be seen right ahead; the expired air, as it rushed like steam from 
a valve, could be heard near by ; the bunch of the neck and the hump were plainly visible as 
they rose and fell with the swell of the waves ; and the terrible commotion of the troubled 
waters, fanned by the gigantic flukes, left a swath of foaming and dancing waves clearly 
outlined upon the surface of the sea. . . . 

Mr. Braxton laid the boat off gracefully to starboard, and the mastodonic head of a genu- 
ine spermaceti whale loomed up on our port bow. The junk was seamed and scarred with many 
a wound received in fierce and angry struggles for supremacy with individuals of its own species, 
or perhaps with the kraken; the foaming waters ran up and down the great shining black head, 
exposing from time to time the long, rakish under-jaw; but what small eyes! 

"Now!" shouted the officer, as if Vera was a half-mile off, instead of about twenty-five 
feet. " Give him some, boy ! Give him — ! " But his well-trained and faithful harpooner had 
already darted the harpoon into the glistening black skin just abaft the fin; the boat was envel- 
oped in a foam-cloud — the "white water" of the whalemen, stirred up by the tremendous 
flukes of the whale. 

"Stern all!" shouted the officer; and the boat was quickly propelled backward by the 
oarsmen, to clear it from the whale. " Are you fast, boy ? " 

" Fust iron in, sir ; can't tell second," replied Vera ; but the zip-zip-zip of the line as it 
fairly leaped from the tub and went spinning round the loggerhead and through the chocks, 
sending up a cloud of smoke produced by friction, indicated the presence of healthy game. 

" Wet line ! wet line ! " shouted Mr. Braxton, as he went forward to kill the whale, and Vera 
came aft to steer the boat, unstepping the mast on his way ; for all whales are now struck under 
sail. The whale, however, soon turned flukes, and went head first to the depths below. Mean- 
time, the other whales had taken the alarm, and with their noses in the air, were showing a 
" clean pair of heels " to windward. 

The boat lay by awaiting the " rising " of the cetacean. Twenty minutes passed, twenty- 
five, stroke-oarsman began to feel hungry ; thirty, thirty-five, and still the line was either slowly 
running out or taut; but soon it began to slacken. "Haul line! haul line!" said the officer, 
peering into the water. " He 's stopped." The line was retrieved as fast as possible and care- 
fully laid in loose coils on the after platform. "Haul line, he 's coming! Coil line clear, 
Vera ! " said Mr. Braxton, shading his eyes with his hand and looking over the gunwale at an 
immense opaque spot beginning to outline itself in the depths below. 







"% 







DRAWN BY W. TABER. 



FAST TO A WHALE. 



ENGRAVED BY J. 



240 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



" Look out ! Here he comes ! Stern all ! Look out for whale ! " 

But the mate's injunctions were received too late. The whale, fairly out of breath, came 
up with a bound and a puff, scattering the water in all directions, and catching the keel of the 
boat on the bunch of its neck. The boat bounded from this part of the whale's anatomy to 
the hump, and, careening to starboard, shot the crew first on the whale's side and then into the 
water. The stroke-oarsman now began to feel wet. The whale, terrified beyond measure by 
the tickling sensation of the little thirty-foot boat creeping down its back, caught the frail cedar 
craft on one corner of its flukes, and tossed it gracefully, but perhaps not intentionally, into the 
air, as one would play with a light rubber ball. As the boat descended, with one tremendous 
" side wipe" of the mighty caudal fin, and with a terrible crash that was heard on the ship nearly 
two miles away, the whale smashed it into kindling-wood. 




A WHALE-BOAT CUT IN TWO. 



This is only one of the exciting tales Mr. Brown has to tell, and the his- 
tory of whaling in every country could add many more. He tells us that 
approaching a whale at all times is like going into battle, and says that 
many of the deeds remembered by old hands were purely heroic, since the 
danger might have been avoided by declining to attack the animal under 
the especially hazardous conditions that often present themselves. 

The persecution suffered by whales of all kinds in all parts of the world 
made the more valuable kinds so scarce by the middle of the present century 
that many voyages were almost fruitless, not only by reason of small catches, 
but because the substitutes invented for whalebone, and the constantly in- 
creasing use of mineral oils had lowered prices to an almost ruinous level. 
The American fleets suffered with the rest, until during the Civil War they 



FISHING AND OTHER MARINE INDUSTRIES 24 1 

were nearly swept from the seas by the ravages of the Shenandoah and other 
Confederate privateers. 

Since then there has been only a partial revival, accompanied by a good 
many changes. A few Scotch and German whalers still go to the northern 
seas, working in the ice, and some American vessels from the Eastern 
States, and a greater number from California search the Pacific and the 
waters off Alaska. All or nearly all of these whalers are provided with 
steam-propellers, having an arrangement by which they can lift the screw 
out of water and use their sails for ordinary purposes. Many of them chase 
with a steam-launch instead of the old-fashioned whaleboats, and save their 
men the back-straining labor of towing a prize perhaps two or three miles 
to the ship. In place of the hand harpoon they have several forms of swivel- 
guns and shoulder-guns discharging harpoons and explosive darts by gun- 
powder, so that a large share of the danger as well as the labor is saved to 
modern whalemen, who are also much better housed and fed in their large 
iron steamships than those used to be who wrestled with scurvy in the grim 
old hulks of half a century ago. 

The ships that go up through Davis Straits now frequently winter there, 
in order to be on hand in May to meet the whales that appear in the first 
open water, to which the men drag their boats over the ice between their 
ships and the first open channels. For the same purpose many vessels of 
the American fleet are accustomed to pass the winter in company under the 
shelter of islands near the mouth of the Mackenzie River. Here they have 
a rendezvous where buildings have been erected and means for social com- 
fort have been established, such as billiard tables, books, etc. These west- 
ern vessels do not force their way into and through the ice, as do those 
among the eastern archipelagoes, but operate in comparatively open water, 
as long as it lasts, along the edge of the paleocrystic ice. Delaying the de- 
parture of those who mean to return to the Pacific and home until the last 
moment, it occasionally happens that some are caught and frozen in. These 
are usually destroyed, but thus far their crews have managed to escape 
either to more fortunate vessels or to the shore, where, at Point Barrow, 
the government has built and keeps furnished a strong house, with stores, 
fuel, and provisions, as a refuge for shipwrecked mariners. 

Walrus-hunting is not much followed nowadays by civilized seamen, 
though the animal is still of great value to the Eskimo and Siberians. It 
has become very scarce in easily accessible waters, but is occasionally taken 
by whalers, who find a market for the ivory of its tusks. 

Sealing is an industry which still claims considerable attention from the 
Scandinavians and Scotchmen who go to the coasts and waters about Spitz- 
16 



242 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

bergen, Jan Mayen, and Greenland, as well as to nearer resorts, in pursuit 
of several species yielding oil and valuable hides ; and in the North Pacific 
the pursuit of the fur seal still occupies many small vessels, but seems likely 
to come soon to an end. Antarctic seals are practically extinct. 

The industry of fishing is probably one of the oldest in the world, and it 
remains among the most important, for the fisheries not only furnish a vast 
amount of nutritious and pleasant, yet remarkably cheap, food, but many 
other things useful to mankind. Hence it is not strange to find that in all 
the early reports of the discovery of new lands and waters that followed one 
another so rapidly from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries, the fish 
and other sea-animals to be found were always given a prominent place in 
the list of valuable assets pertaining to each locality. Even the Spaniards 
and Portuguese, in their insane rush for gold and silver, to the neglect and 
ruin of everything else, had to pay some little attention to fishing and allied 
industries in both the East and West Indies ; while in the case of the ex- 
ploitations of new regions by the calmer, more prudent people of western 
Europe — the British, French, Dutch and Scandinavians, — the value of the 
harvest of the sea was really more in view, at first, than that of the land, at 
least when they began to visit and colonize North America. Take, as an 
example, the history of St. Pierre, Miquelon, and the others that form a 
group of islets in the Gulf of Newfoundland, half way between Prince Ed- 
ward Island and Newfoundland. Mr. S. G. W. Benjamin, in whose " Cruise 
of the Alice May" you may find many interesting and picturesque mate- 
rials for an account of them, tells us a French settlement was begun on 
St. Pierre as early as 1604, and that tradition says the islands were resorted 
to by the Basques two centuries before that, as is very likely true. 

In 1713 the colony numbered three thousand souls, and had become a very important fish- 
ing port. In that very year St. Pierre was ceded to Great Britain, together with Newfoundland, 
the French being merely allowed permission to dry their fish on the adjacent shores. But when 
the victory of Wolfe resulted in the loss of Canada to France, she was once more awarded this 
little group of isles lying off Fortune Bay, to serve as a depot for her fishermen. The French 
now gave themselves in earnest to developing the cod-fisheries, determined, apparently, that 
what they had lost on land should be made up by the sea. In twelve years the average exporta- 
tion of fish amounted to six thousand quintals, giving employment to over two hundred smacks, 
sailed by eight thousand seamen. The English recaptured the isles in 1778, destroyed all the 
stages and store-houses, and forced the inhabitants to go into exile. The peace of Versailles re- 
stored St. Pierre to France in 1783, and the fugitives returned to the island at the royal expense. 
The fisheries now became more prosperous than ever, when the war of '93 once more brought 
the English fleets to St. Pierre. Again the inhabitants were forced to fly. By the peace of 
Amiens, in 1802, France regained possession of this singularly evanescent possession, and lost it 
the following year, when the town was destroyed. In 1816 St. Pierre and Miquelon were finally 
re-ceded to France, in whose power they have ever since remained. 



FISHING AND OTHER MARINE INDUSTRIES 




CURING FISH AT ST. PIERRE. 



As these islands were of no use to any one for any other purpose, all this 
struggle for their possession was in order to retain the privilege and naval 
control of fishing in those waters. The French government has carefully 
fostered this interest ever since, and now the islands not only have a settled 
population of several thousand, but at the height of the season sometimes 
as many as ten thousand strangers (sailors and fishermen) congregate at 



244 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

the principal port, St. Pierre, which is one of the most important centers 
in the world for the marketing, curing, and export of sea-caught fish. 

Of all waters those of the North Atlantic seem to excel in useful fishes ; 
from the oil-shark hand-lining off the coast of Lapland, or the sardine- 
catching of Spain, to Yankee sword-fishing, this ocean is alive with fish and 
fishermen, on both sides and at all seasons of the year. 

The whole coast of Norway supports this industry, especially around the 
far northern Lafoden Islands. The North Sea, shallow and cold, is the 
home of many valuable species that are sought by extensive fleets from 
Denmark, Holland, and the north of France, while thousands of British sail- 
ors make a living along- their own eastern coasts and among' the islands 
north of Scotland; but the waters on all sides of the British Isles are'fish- 
ing waters, especially the English and Irish channels and the western lochs 
of Scotland ; the herring-catch alone is worth eight and a half millions of 
dollars a year, while Great Britain's mackerel-catch amounts to two mil- 
lions, and her share of the codfishery to another two millions. Nearly 
half of all the products of British fisheries are obtained by the use of the 
beam-trawl — a huge dredge-like bag-net, handled and towed by steamers 
in pretty deep water, which scoops in everything near the bottom, where 
the most desirable sea-fishes stay. Among the prizes are the turbot and 
sole — toothsome and valuable species not known along American shores. 

More southerly are the profitable fisheries for pilchards, sprats, and 
especially sardines — little fishes taken in vast numbers and canned or pre- 
served in various ways. The abundance of sardines, a recent writer tells 
us, may be inferred from the fact that the Spanish fishermen take annually 
about one hundred thousand tons of these little fishes, having a value of 
from $400,000 to $600,000. A peculiar method of capturing the sardines 
at night prevails in the Adriatic. The location of the shoals offish is liter- 
ally felt out by a light sounding-line, and by means of the attraction of a 
fire of resinous pine the fish are slowly coaxed into some creek or estuary 
and surrounded with a seine. The demand for wood for use in this and 
other night fisheries causes a serious drain on the neighboring pine-forests. 

The great fishery of the Mediterranean, however, is that for tunnies — 
huge fishes allied to mackerel, sometimes weighing several hundredweight, 
and regarded in America as poor food. They have been taken by means 
of pounds and strong enclosing nets ever since classical antiquity, and pre- 
served tunny flesh is still popular in Spain, Italy, and North Africa, while 
the same fish is the object of one of the principal sea-industries of Japan. 

But important as are the catching, preserving, and utilization of these 
and many other European fishes, they are far outranked by the marine fish- 



FISHING AND OTHER MARINE INDUSTRIES 



'-45 



eries for the cod and its relatives, the halibut, haddock, hake, etc., in 
waters about Newfoundland, Labrador, and Iceland, where also great 
quantities of mackerel, herring, and other food fishes are regularly obtained. 






HAND-LINE FRSHING ON THE GRAND BANKS. 

The principal grounds are on the Banks of Newfoundland, which have been 
resorted to for more than three hundred years by men from both continents. 
The Banks of Newfoundland are a series of shoals — submerged islands, 
in fact — which lie off the northeastern coast of America from Cape Cod to 
the farther end of Newfoundland. The shallowness of the water over them 



16* 



246 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

makes them advantageous places for fishing, because many of the species 
caught remain near the bottom, and in deep water are therefore beyond 
convenient reach. It is possible, also, to anchor there — often a necessity. 

But just here are presented some of the worst perils to which fisher- 
men are exposed. Nowhere are old ocean's storms worse than on these 
Banks, where the sand is sometimes stirred five hundred feet below the sur- 
face. The best fishing comes in winter — the season of the heaviest gales. 
The vessels must anchor close together, too, for the areas of good fishing 
are small, and if one breaks its hawser, or the anchor drags, there is great 
clanger of drifting afoul of some neighbor, which is likely to end in the de- 
struction of both. Then there is ever present the danger, in these latitudes 
of almost ceaseless fog, of being run down by the transatlantic steamers, in 
whose track the fishing fleets must anchor. The skipper keeps his bell 
tolling, or a great horn blowing, but if a steamer comes down the wind her 
lookout will hardly be able to hear it before it is too late to stop or change 
the course of the monster rushing at full speed through the thickness of 
mist and flying spray. " Before anything can be done the relentless iron 
prow cuts into the schooner, which for a moment quivers and then disappears 
into the depths. . . . One of these great iron ships might cut the bows off 
a fishing schooner of sixty or eighty tons and not, perhaps, experience a 
sufficient shock to alarm the passengers sleeping calmly in their staterooms." 

The vessels which go upon this perilous quest are the stanchest, swiftest, 
and withal handsomest little vessels that sail our seas. Their rig is adapted 
to this purpose, and spreads almost as much canvas as a racing-yacht, 
which, in fact, on this side of the Atlantic has been modeled from Banks 
fishermen. The best of them probably are those hailing from Gloucester, 
Mass., and these are never used for any other purpose. 

The old-fashioned hand-line fishing, such as still holds a place in the 
mackerel fisheries — although even there it has given way in most vessels to 
purse-netting, — is no longer practised in the American codfishery, which 
now uses the trawl-line altogether, by which the men have added to the 
hardship and danger of their adventurous life as well as to its profits. 

This trawl is not a hu^e dredge as is the beam-trawl of the North Sea 
fishermen, from which it has unfortunately copied its name, but is a strong 
rope between three and four hundred feet long, having at each end an 
anchor and a flag-buoy. It is so arranged that when it is stretched out and 
anchored the line will be several fathoms beneath the surface. To this line, 
at intervals of six feet or so, are hung short lines, each carrying a stout 
hook. When the fishing-ground has been reached, the captain anchors his 
vessel, or, if the weather permits, he sails gently to and fro. Previously, six 



FISHING AND OTHER MARINE INDUSTRIES 



247 



trawls have been baited with clams brought from home, and one put in each 
of the six small boats which the vessel carries. Two men now put off in 
each of these boats and anchor the trawls at convenient distances from each 
other, in such a way that the trawl-line, with its fringe of hooks, shall be 




A FISHING SCHOONER " HOVE TO " IN A GALE ON THE BANKS. 



stretched taut and at the proper depth. How long they stay down depends 
on the weather — five or six hours, or from evening until morning, is the 
usual period. Then the men go out, and taking up the anchors at one end, 
haul each trawl into the boat, coiling it in the bottom and taking off the 
hooks each captive fish as fast as they come to it. 



248 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



Simple as this sounds, it is terribly hard work. The trawls are heavy 
and stiff, and armed with dangerously sharp hooks. The busiest season is 
midwinter, and no dread of cold or danger must stop the fisherman, who 
boldly ventures in his little dory into the teeth of a howling snow-storm 
and fast increasing gale, piling the water "mountain-high" about him and 
encasing his body in a sheet of icy spray; this must he do, in spite of dis- 
comfort and the imminent risk of death, if he would save from destruction 
his valuable trawls and the booty they may have hooked for him. A fine 
day on the Banks of Newfoundland is a rare thing ; fog and snow and icy 
gales are the rule, and only the boldest courage, endurance, and skill 
will enable a man to resist that ocean and wrest from it his self-support. 
A vivid picture of the hardships and dangers of fishing on the Banks is to 
be found in Rudyard Kipling's story, " Captains Courageous." 

The intrepid and skilful voyages of our whalers and fishermen, daring 
every fatigue and danger in the open sea, have been schools for the best 
seamen of the world. Every nation is glad to draw these sailors into their 
navies, and it is they who make the bravest yet most cautious captains of 
our merchant marine, showing to their comrades and to landsmen splendid 
examples of heroism and fortitude. This is the schooling I meant when I 
said that in its industries we get not only food, but formation of character, 
from old Ocean, — and this is the highest result attainable from either 
land or sea. 





CHAPTER XII 

THE PLANTS OF THE SEA AND THEIR USES 

HE ocean was the home of the first living thing, either plant 
or animal, that appeared on our planet; seaweeds and salt- 
water animals are found in much older rocks than any that 
contain the fossils of land life. Moreover, though called a 
"wide waste of waters," and seeming a complete desert as 
we gaze upon its restless surface on a dull morning, there is a greater 
number of animals and plants by count, and quite as large a variety, under 
the waves as above them, and the bottom of the sea — at all events near its 
margin — is more populous than any bit of woods you ever saw. 

There exists in our ponds and ditches a race of plants so minute that it 
requires a powerful microscope to examine them. Under this instrument 
it is seen that they have delicate, flinty shells or armor, which is of a great 
variety of forms, — coiled, globular, boat-shaped, spindle-like, and so on, — 
and always beautifully sculptured. These minute and beautiful diatoms, as 
they are called, move about freely, and were long supposed to be animals: 
now they are known to be the simplest of seaweeds, consisting of only one 
cell. Since life first began, these diatoms, and other microscopic plants 
much like them, have swarmed not only in the fresh waters, but in all the 
oceans of the globe, furnishing food for mollusks and all the lowly animals 
whose food is brought into their mouths by the currents. Innumerable, and 
as wide-spread as the salt water itself, every one of these myriads of minute 
plants has left a record ; for its delicate, glass-like shell was indestructible, 
and when the bit of life was lost, it sank slowly down to the bottom. What 
effect toward perceptible sediment could come from a thing so small that it 
would scarcely be felt in your eye? One or two, or even a million, would 
go for little; but century after century, through ages too long for us to 
comprehend, a steady rain of these exquisitely engraved particles of flint 
showered down upon the still sea-floor, almost as thickly as you have seen 
motes in a sunbeam, until there was deposited a layer, many feet in thick- 

249 



25O THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

ness, of nothing but diatom-skeletons. Though this went on to a greater 
or less extent everywhere in the sea, such deposits are not now to be dis- 
covered everywhere, because disturbing causes swept the shells away, or 
broke up the floor after it had been laid down ; but in various parts of the 
world to-day, you may find wide beds of rock made up wholly of such 
skeletons, soldered together into hard stone ; while in some regions the 
mud of our sea-bottom appears to consist of almost nothing else. The 
mighty chalk cliffs of Great Britain and the French coast were built up in 
precisely this way at the bottom of an ancient sea, whence they have been 
lifted, but they are composed of much besides diatoms. 

From the simplicity of diatoms the vegetation of the sea can be traced 
upward through larger and more complicated kinds of plants until we "reach 
the enormous algae that break the gloom of black headlands by their bril- 
liant tints, and furnish a lurking-place under their wide-spreading and 
dense foliage for hosts of marine animals — some hiding for safety, others 
to watch for prey. 

Seaweeds grow in all latitudes, even close to the pole, but mainly along 
the shore, for below the depth of about one hundred fathoms none but 
microscopic forms are known. These latter float about, of course, and 
many of them have been thought to be animals because they seem able to 
move at their own will. They come to the surface as well as haunt the 
depths ; and the Red Sea takes its name from the fact that a minute car- 
mine-tinted alga occasionally rises to the surface in throngs so dense and 
wide as to tinge the water for miles at a stretch. The same thing occurs 
in the Pacific, where the sailors call it "sea-sawdust." 

The proper home of the seaweed, however, is a rocky shore between 
tide-marks or just below them, and it is because the eastern coast of the 
United States is deficient in rocks — at least south of Cape Cod — that 
this is poor in algae, compared with other regions. The seaweed has no 
roots, and only clings to the rock for support ; shifting sand therefore would 
not hold it, and there are great sandy deserts under the ocean, bare of algae, 
as some land regions are sandy deserts naked of terrestrial plants. 

It often happens, however, that masses of weed will be torn away from 
their moorings and set adrift. This does not necessarily kill them, for they 
go on flourishing while afloat, and such is supposed to be the origin of those 
great areas of " gulfweed " vegetation in mid-ocean called "sargasso seas." 
You will remember that a branch of the Gulf Stream, striking over toward 
the Moorish coast of Africa, is turned southward there, and sweeps down to 
the equator, then westward again, circumscribing a broad region in the 
middle Atlantic whose only currents go round and round in a slow whirl- 



THE PLANTS OF THE SEA AND THEIR USES 



251 



pool ; and here it is that the gulfweed concentrates in masses sometimes 
dense enough to impede the progress of a ship — Columbus reported among 
the wonders of his first voyage the trouble he had in sailing through it — 
and coverinsf an area between the Azores and the Bahamas as lar?e as the 
Mississippi valley. This is the Sargasso Sea ordinarily referred to in 




THE MARBLED ANGLER ON ITS GULFWEED RAFT. 



books, but it is not the only one. A thousand miles west of San Francisco 
there is a similar collection of floating plants, and others exist under like 
conditions in the southern oceans. 

These floating meadows, as it were, are chosen as the abode of a long 
list of animals that rarely quit the safety and plenty of their precincts. 



252 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



Among these are innumerable pretty jelly-fishes, sea-worms, and mollusks 
without shells, which cling to the buoyant plants, and perhaps feed solely 
upon them. Here are to be had in abundance the fairy-like, rare pteropods, 
the richly purple janthinas towing their curious rafts of eggs, and no end of 
small crabs. Here a small fish, something like a perch, spends his whole 
time building a nest like a bird's in the tangled weed-masses, and carefully 
guarding his treasures against the large marauding fishes that haunt the 
place to the dread of its peaceful inhabitants ; and here those far-flying 

birds, the wandering albatross and 
the petrels, hover about in search of 
something to capture and eat. The 
Sargasso Sea is an extremely interest- 
ing part of the ocean, except to the 
luckless sailor becalmed and balked 
in its midst, as was Sir John Haw- 
kins when he penned the following 
quaint observations, some three cen- 
turies ago : 

Were it not for the Moving of the Sea, by 
the Force of Winds, Tides and Currents, it would 
corrupt all the World. The Experience of which 
I Saw Aruio 1590, lying with a Fleet about the 
Islands of Azores, almost Six Months, the great- 
est Part of the time we were becalmed, with 
which all the Sea became so replenished with 
several sorts of Gellies and Forms of Serpents, 
Adders and Snakes, as seem'd Wonderful ; some 
green, some black, some yellow, some white, 
some of divers Colours, many of them had Life, 
and some there were a Yard & a half, & some 
two Yards long ; which had I not seen, I could 
hardly have believed. 



In favorable places a surprising 
variety of seaweeds can be picked out, 
and books exist by which you may 
learn the method of classification and 
names of the clifterent species, the 
chief of which, for America, is Harvey's splendid work, published by the 
Smithsonian Institution. Not only in the shape and colors of the /roads 
(as the leaf-like expansions or branching tufts of the stem are called) do 
seaweeds differ greatly among themselves, but in size, varying from many 




A PIECE OF GULFWEED. 

It is inhabited by two sea-slugs, protected by their resemblance 
to its leaflets, and by small crustaceans, hydroids, etc. 



THE PLANTS OF THE SEA AND THEIR USES 253 

diminutive or even microscopic sorts to the cable-like growths of California, 
which would measure a quarter of a mile in length if stretched out. 

Algae, as I have said, constitute, with very few exceptions, the whole 
vegetation of the salt water, together with a large part of the vegetation in 
fresh water ; and they serve the same useful purpose there that land-plants 
do for the dry parts of the globe, continually making and throwing off the 
oxygen which is necessary to keep the water as well as the air pure. To 
this end they do a very important work. 

This is not the whole of their service in ocean matters, however. I 
think it may be said that if it were not for seaweeds animals could not live 
in the ocean, as truthfully as that if it were not for herbage no animals 
would be able to exist on land. Seaweeds are fed upon directly by all 
sorts of salt-water life, from mollusks as big as your thumb to turtles the 
size of a dining-table, and they make a shelter for thousands of little fellows 
who never leave their shadow. 

But this is a small part of the story. The diatoms, and other minute 
plants like them, form the main portion, if not all, of the food of a large 
number of sponges, polyps, mollusks, and other stationary, sluggish crea- 
tures, that otherwise, so far as I see, would not be able to live at all. 
These, in turn, are fed upon by larger predaceous animals. Thus, though 
the fishes and cetaceans may never bite a seaweed themselves (those large 
marine herbivores, the manatee and dugongs, subsist almost wholly upon it, 
however), they depend for food upon creatures that do. We may say, there- 
fore, that the algae form the basis of all ocean life. 

Men have been able to make marine plants of service to them also 
— a resource more important formerly than now. In the last century, for 
example, the kelp trade was the one great industry of the islands at the 
west of Ireland and Scotland, employing thousands of persons, and paying 
vast revenues to the lordly owners of the shores. Kelp is the name of any 
large, leathery sort of seaweed, whose leaves float at or near the surface, 
supported by bladder-like expansions; but in this case the word meant the 
ashes of any seaweed dried in the sun and then slowly burned in kilns, 
clouding the air with huge volumes of strongly odorous smoke. The slow 
burning of the seaweed left the ashes fused into a solid mass, which was 
broken up like stone before being sold. In France this substance was 
called varec ; and in Spain, where the algae were mixed with beach-plants, 
cultivated for the purpose, and burned in shallow pits in the ground, it went 
to market as barilla. 

In those days, kelp ash was the only source of the valuable alkali soda 
needed in manufacturing glass and soap. Then a French chemist discov- 



254 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



ered how to make such soda out of common salt, and the kelp ovens were 
abandoned, except a few in Scotland, supplying the demand for iodine and 
several other chemicals contained in this residuum which is so rich in iodine, 
used in photography and in medicine, that a ton of kelp ash will sometimes 
yield twenty pounds; yet only about 100,000 pounds are now produced in 
this way, while five times as much is obtained by chemical treatment of 
Chile saltpeter. It is a curious fact that barbarous people have long chewed 
seaweeds as a remedy in diseases for which physicians now prescribe iodine. 
Iodine is a violet dye, and the bluish and purple tints of many algae, shells, 
and sea-animals appear to be due to the large amount of this element in 
sea-water. 

Seaweeds and other marine plants, like eel-grass, are collected in great 
quantities by farmers in all parts of the world to be used as a fertilizer. 

Shell-mud, dead fish, and other marine products are 
also of high value as manure, on account of the 
large proportion of lime, carbon, and soda which 
they contain. Indeed, there is a kind of seaweed 
growing at great depths called the nullipore, which 
takes up so much lime from the water that its sub- 
stance becomes almost like stone, so that the plant 
retains its shape and full size when dried. Some of 
these nullipores are beautifully fan-shaped, scarlet 
or pink, and are often seen in museums, marked 
corallines. 

To return to the gathering of seaweeds by far- 
mers, nowhere is it more customary than in some 
parts of New England. Thus the well-known 
Second Beach, just east of Newport, is in the fall 
of the year the scene of a vast activity in this di- 
rection. " It may easily happen," we are told, 
" that the pilgrim to Whitehall, topping the hill 
on a brilliant autumn morning, shall come upon 
a scene in which quiet plays no part. The sea- 
weed, that harvest which, ripening without labor, is neither bought nor sold, 
is setting inshore under the urgings of wind and tide, and scores of farmers 
have crowded to the spot to gather it. An artist could hardly wish a better 
subject for his pencil than one of these wild harvestings — the plunging 
horses, forced far out into the surf, their slow return, half swimming, half 
wading, dragging the heavily loaded rakes which leave behind them a long 
furrow of foam, the heaped-up kelp glistening in the sunshine, the oxen, 




SEAWEEDS. 

i. Lamiiiaria digitata. 2. L. lowgi- 
cruris. 



THE PLANTS OF THE SEA AND THEIR USES 255 

yoked by fours, waiting for their load, the shouts of the men, the dash, the ex- 
citement, and beyond and above all, the wonderful blues and iridescent greens 
which are the peculiar property of Newport waters and the Newport sky." 

Cattle and horses that are accustomed to rough pastures, like the 
Scotch and Irish moors, eat seaweed and thrive on it, especially as winter 
fodder, and from several species are derived dishes for our own tables. The 
Irish moss, or carrageen, — which is not a moss at all, but a seaweed, — is 
the most important of these, and grows on both sides of the northern At- 
lantic. In England the market supply comes chiefly from the western coast 
of Ireland, while Massachusetts Bay gives America all that is wanted, prin- 
cipally the red, coral-like Chondrus crisp?cs. The little port of Scituate, Mas- 
sachusetts, is the chief point of supply, where many thousands of pounds 
are gathered. In early June, two or three hundred men and women go to 
the rocks at low tide and pick off the small brown plants, each man getting 
about a barrel in one day's work. When the tide rises, the people get into 
small boats and pull up the moss with rakes. 

The moss gathered each day is taken to the beach, where a gravelly 
space has been prepared, and is spread out to lie bleaching during all of the 
next day, when it is taken up, washed in tubs, and again spread out. The 
washing and drying in the sun continue for seven days, by which time it 
has bleached to a yellowish white. In cookery, jellies, blanc mange, and 
various methods of boiling in milk and mixing in soups are used to make it 
palatable. Besides being of value for food, carrageen serves to make sizing 
used by paper-makers, cloth-printers, hatters, and so on, to clarify beer in the 
brewery vats, as a medicine, and to make bandoline for stiffening the hair. 

Other species beside the Irish moss serve as food in Europe, generally in 
a raw state, often proving the only salty relish which the Irish peasant has 
to eat with his potatoes. One of these is the dulse of the Scotch (the 
dillisk of Ireland), which also abounds in the Mediterranean, and is there 
made into a soup. The natives of the South Sea Islands eat algae, which 
are extraordinarily abundant and varied in Oriental latitudes ; and the poor 
among the Japanese and in the interior of China, where the weed is sent 
dried, prize it especially, because it has a sea flavor and saves salt, which 
with them is a costly luxury. These people mix it with vegetables and 
other materials, to form thick, delicious soups and dressings. A peculiarly 
bad-smelling sauce, prepared from seaweed, is among the exports China 
sends to Europe as a condiment. 

Along the shores from Japan to Sumatra grows an alga which the natives 
of those coasts dry and keep as long as they please. When the substance 
is wanted they steep some of the dried pieces in hot water, where the weed 



256 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

dissolves, and then, having been taken off the fire, stiffens into a glue which 
is said to be the strongest cement in the world. 

A kind of false isinglass, also, is a product of the Eastern seaweeds, and 
it not only enters into the pastry and confectionery of Chinese bakers, but 
serves to varnish and glue thin paper and to stiffen the light transparent 
gauzes of fine silk used in making Oriental screens, fans, hangings, etc., 
so that painters can decorate them. With a poorer quality the bamboo 
stretchers of paper umbrellas, lanterns, and various toys are smeared to give 
them hard and polished surfaces. 

Seaweed has also been used in the manufacture of paper, and its com- 
plete success in this branch of industry is as yet hindered only by the diffi- 
culty of perfect bleaching. Certain species of it are utilized in enormous 
quantities by upholsterers as stuffing for sofas, chairs, and mattresses; in 
Japan it is formed into a substitute for window-glass; ornaments and small 
articles of use, like knife-handles, are made by several nations out of large 
dried seaweeds ; and, finally, albums of preserved fronds are one of the 
prettiest things to be found in a naturalist's cabinet. 

The great majority of seaweeds grow between tide-marks, and they 
undoubtedly perform an important service in preventing the wear and tear 
of the coast in many situations. Some, however, grow in much deeper 
waters, and these, also, may serve as breakwaters of no mean strength. 
Such is the case, for instance, at San Pedro, near Los Angeles, California, 
where the abundant growth offshore forms such a barrier to the ocean roll- 
ers as to turn the open roadstead into a calm harbor within it. 

This belongs to the group of gigantic kelps of which those at the Falk- 
land Islands and about Tierra del Fuego are other and noted species. Were 
it not for the growth of this strong, cable-like, buoyant plant, large numbers 
of other plants and sea-animals would find it impossible to exist exposed to 
the violence of the South Pacific waves. Sometimes the stems reach 
twelve hundred feet in length, and the bladders by which the immense 
fronds are buoyed up are as big as kegs. 

This gigantic seaweed is plentiful all along the Pacific coast of America 
to Alaska, and the natives of our northwest coast used to make extensive 
use of it in the way of ropes, etc. It was from this weed that, by a careful 
preparation, they made the lines for their harpoons and deep-sea fishing; 
and the bladders furnished them ready-made receptacles for eulachon oil, 
for water for their seatrips, and for other liquids. 

A California correspondent of the New York "Evening Post" gave a 
pretty picture, not long ago, of one of the kelp patches at St. Nicholas 
Island, where the beds of this wonderful plant reach out for a mile or more, 



THE PLANTS OF THE SEA AND THEIR USES 



257 



growing up from the rocks below and forming an effectual break ; the seas 
losing their force in their effort to pass through the submarine meshwork. 

The vines constitute a veritable forest, and, drifting over it in fifty or sixty feet of water, you 
may see a perfect maze of stems with broad leaves waving gracefully in the current, forming 
arbors, arches, and colonnades. Here, poised idly, in rich contrast to the olive-hued mass, may 
be seen fish of a bright golden color, others in tints of blue and green. The sea swell coming 
in causes an undulatory movement, and the long colonnades seem to melt one into another, reap- 
pearing in different shapes. When the leaves reach the surface, the shore wind, sweeping down 
from the hills, lifts them from the water, and they flutter in the air like mimic sails. Each leaf is 
a study. Many are encrusted with a delicate bryozoon, which presents the effect of white lace 




DIATOMS, MAGNIFIED, IN A DROP OF WATER. 

upon the surface, while a close inspection will reveal minute anemones, coiled tubular worms, 
which throw out flower-like organs of exquisite beauty; while flat shells lie among them, and 
crawling here and there are marvels of animal life, shell-less mollusks, which so mimic the weed 
that it is almost impossible to distinguish them. 

This protective feature is a characteristic of life among the kelp forests that line the entire 
Pacific shores of North and South America, many animals simulating it so perfectly in color that 
the best-trained eyes often fail to observe them. This is especially true of the crabs and shell- 
less mollusks The latter have not only assumed the exact tint of the weed, but are often cov- 
ered with barbels of flesh that simulate the tangles of the substance. Upon the backs of the 
crabs are singular markings in green and white, which so resemble the minute incrustations of 
the kelp that the resultant protection is complete. [Compare illustration on page 252.] Each 
vine is fastened to a stone, and the clinging roots shelter hordes of creatures of various kinds — 
deep-water crabs, octopods, starfishes, and a host of others. 




A MARINE NATURALIST. 



CHAPTER XIII 



ANIMAL LIFE IN THE SEA 




HE primitive idea of the ocean was that it was a vast desert, 
and a strange disbelief in its being inhabited by more than 
the very few forms that everybody was compelled to recog- 
nize persisted up to quite modern times among those who 
should have known better. Pliny boldly asserted, for exam- 
ple, that nothing remained in the Mediterranean Sea unknown to him 
after he had made a list of 176 marine animals! But now we know that 
the sea teems with living beings as densely as do the fresh waters or the 
air. In it began the life of the globe, for the fossil records of the rocks show 
that the first animals lived in the ocean, and that ages passed before an)- of 
them began to people the newly formed lands and breathe the atmosphere in- 
stead of the air in the water ; and, abundant as oceanic life now is, the paleo- 
zoic seas held immensely greater hordes, of which many forms were giants as 
compared with those of our day. Some of the old straight chambered shells 
were twelve feet long ; and I have seen fossil ammonites, extinct relatives 
of our coiled pearly nautilus, which when alive must have been too heavy for 
a man to lift. The fishes, too, could tell great stories of the glory of their 
ancestors in size and strength and numbers. Some of them wore solid coats 
of mail upon their heads, and could do battle even with the huge swim- 
ming reptiles that were the dreaded tyrants of the Mesozoic deep. 

Life in the ocean in those old geologic days was a long guerrilla warfare 
— every animal guarding against attack, and at the same time watching 
sharply for an opportunity to seize and prey upon some weaker companion. 
As for the foraminifers and other microscopic creatures, they were countless, 
and their skeletons, singly invisible, have by accumulation built up great 
masses of rock, like the chalk-beds of England and France. 

Though lessened in numbers and reduced in size, because the land has 
gradually won over to its side many sorts of animals which in former ages 
were exclusively confined to the water, and for other reasons, the sea still 



260 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

holds its share of every "branch" and "class" (except birds, and it may 
almost claim some of them, such as the albatross, penguins, and petrels), and 
a majority of the "orders" of animal life. Glance at the catalogue: Fora- 
minifers, sponges, and polyps are chiefly confined to salt water ; starfishes, 
urchins (or sea-eggs), and the like, wholly so : mollusks (next higher) 
are principally oceanic, and the majority of the crabs inhabit salt water. 
Among the last-named one species, the common horse-foot (Limulus) 
of our shores, remains as the solitary representative of that immense and 
varied group, the trilobites, which so crowded the Paleozoic sea-bottom 
that some rocks — for instance, the limestones of Iowa — are packed al- 
most as full of their fossils as is a raisin-box of raisins. 

None of the insects is truly marine, yet some of them are seafaring, 
truly, for they spend their lives on drifting sea-wrack, or on beaches just 
out of reach of the tides ; but most of the true worms are dwellers in the 
mud of sea-shores and sea-bottoms. No one knows of any land fishes ; 
but I need not tell you that fishes throng in the fresh waters as well as in 
the salt, and that many species inhabit both at different seasons. 

In respect to the reptiles, of which the ancient oceans contained gigantic 
and horrid types, I do not know any now that are truly oceanic except the 
turtles, if you leave out the "sea-serpent," of which we hear so many won- 
derful and not quite satisfactory tales. You will hear of "sea-snakes" in 
the East Indies, but they are only certain kinds of serpents which swim 
well, and pass the most of their time in the salt water, as several species 
of our own country do in the rivers and ponds; all the oriental sea-snakes 
are venomous. 

It is in this manner, too, that we may count certain birds, such as the 
petrels, auks, penguins, albatrosses, frigate-birds, and their kin, as belonging 
to the ocean. They spend all their life flying over the waves, seeking 
their food there, and some of them rarely go ashore, except to lay their eggs 
and hatch their young on remote rocks, resting and sleeping on the billows, 
when not busy at their hunting. In the highest rank of all, however, the 
mammals, several families are natives of the " great deep" — the whales, 
dolphins, and porpoises, the seals and walruses, and the manatees and 
dugongs. But all these must come to the surface to breathe, not having 
grills like fishes, but true lungrs. 

As it is only within the last thirty years that machinery suitable for 
deep-sea dredging has been invented, so it is only lately that we have been 
able to learn much as to the population of the ocean beneath the surface 
layer and marginal shallows. Now by means of beam-trawls, dredges, 
tangle-bars, etc., worked by steam-machinery on shipboard, naturalists may 



ANIMAL LIFE IN THE SEA 



26l 



scrape up the bottom-ooze and obtain living objects or their bony relics at 
the depth of even 3000 to 4000 fathoms or more than four miles, for living 
beings are found in these profound abysses. Many scientific expeditions, 
such as those of the English exploring steamer Challenger, about 1874, 
have carried out these 
dredging investigations, 
and the United States Fish 
Commission possesses the 
large, specially built, sea- 
going Albatross, provided 
with all the necessary ap- 
paratus for cleep-sea ex- 
ploration. By means of 
these and other vessels an 
enormous amount of study 
— all useful in ascertaining 
the habits and methods 
of reproduction of food- 
fishes — has been carried 
on by American marine 
naturalists; 

It appears that as you 
cjo further and further from 
shore, and into deeper and 
deeper water, the fewer 
animals and plants are ob- 
tained, and that very few 
species indeed which live 
along shore are to be found 
also at a depth greater than 
about 100 fathoms. 

Almost all animals, 
moreover, have a limited 
distribution in the sea, as is the case among those on land, though we can- 
not always, or perhaps often, say why the limits we find should exist ; one 
sort of crab, or mollusk, or polyp, appearing here and another different one 
exclusively there, when the conditions seem to us very similar, and no bar- 
rier is perceptible. It is not easy to explain why a certain sort of cowry, 
for example, should be found only along a particular strip of coast, when 
nothing that we can see prevents its extending its range much further. It 




LANDING THE BEAM-TRAWL ON DECK. 



262 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 








is believed that the temperature of the water is the chief fact which sets these 
invisible boundaries to the wanderings of animals living near the surface, 
only a few of which are very wide-spread in their distribution. The direc- 
tion and character of the ocean currents have much to do with the geographic 
distribution of oceanic life, as has been mentioned in Chapter II (page 25). 

Now in deep-sea life the case is 
different. Here temperature cannot 
be of so much account, since only a 
short distance down, the water be- 
comes almost as cold as ice, and pre- 
serves this uniform chill all around 
the globe. The life found at a 
great depth, too, is very wide- 
spread, instead of restricted in its 
range, oiten occurring in two or more 
ocean basins ; but here the restric- 
tion is an up-and-down one, rather 
than 4 horizontal, and the secret is 
found in the word pressure. Few 
animals are able to live both in the 
shallows and under the enormous 
weight of sea water three or four 
miles deep. 

This has recently (1897) been 
summed up very clearly by Prof. 
Arthur P. Crouch, in an article in 
"The Nineteenth Century," from 
which it will be worth while to quote 
a paragraph or two : 




A TYPICAL JELLYFISH. 

This species (Pelagia cyatiella) is a characteristic oceanic dis- 

cophorous medusa, common along the Atlantic coast of 

the United States; it is semi-transparent and 

lustrous pink. 



The conditions under which they [that is, deep-sea animals] have to live in the abysmal 
areas seem very unfavorable to animal existence. The temperature at the bottom of the ocean 
is nearly down to freezing-point, and sometimes actually below it. There is a total absence of 
light, as far as sunlight is concerned, and there is an enormous pressure, reckoned at about one 
ton to the square inch in every iooo fathoms, which is 160 times greater than that of the 
atmosphere we live in. At 2500 fathoms the pressure is thirty times more powerful than the 
steam pressure of a locomotive when drawing a train. 1 As late as 1880 a leading zoologist ex- 

1 It does not follow that these creatures are conscious ascend in a balloon or climb a very high mountain, and 

of this pressure, any more than we are of the pressure after a time we find that we cannot go any farther, 

upon us of the fourteen pounds to the square inch of our Land animals therefore have a vertical limit to their dis- 

atmosphere. The point is that they do feel it when they tribution as well as sea animals, and for analogous, 

rise upward to a point where the pressure is distinctly reasons. — E. I. 
less, just as we are conscious of a difference when we 



ANIMAL LIFE IN THE SEA 



26- 



plained the existence of deep-sea animals at such depths by assuming that their bodies were 
composed of solids and liquids of great density, and contained no air. This, however, is not the 
case with deep-sea fish, which are provided with air-inflated swimming-bladders. If one of 
these fish, in full chase after its prey, happens to ascend beyond a certain level, its bladder 
becomes distended with the decreased pressure, and carries it, in spite of all its efforts, still 
higher in its course. In fact, members of this unfortunate class are liable to become victims to 
the unusual accident of falling upwards, and no doubt meet with a violent death soon after 
leaving their accustomed level, and long before their bodies reach the surface. . . . 

The fauna of the deep sea — with a few exceptions hitherto only known as fossils — are new 
and specially modified forms of families and genera inhabiting shallow waters in modern times, 
and have been driven down to the depths of the ocean by their more powerful rivals in the 
battle of life, much as the ancient Britons were compelled to withdraw to the barren and inac- 
cessible fastnesses of Wales. Some of their organs have undergone considerable modification in 
correspondence to the changed conditions of their new habitats. Thus down to 900 fathoms 
their eyes have generally become enlarged, to make the best of the faint light which may pos- 
sibly penetrate there. After 1000 fathoms these organs are either still further enlarged or so 
greatly reduced that in some species they disappear altogether and are replaced by enormously 
long feelers. The only light at great depths which would enable large eyes to be of any service 
is the phosphorescence given out by deep-sea animals. We know that at the surface this light 
is often very powerful, and Sir YVyville Thomson has recorded one occasion on which the sea at 
night was " a perfect blaze of phosphorescence, so strong that lights and shadows were thrown 




THE BOTTLE-FISH AND THE PELICAN-FISH. 



on the sails and it was easy to read the smallest print." It is thought possible by several natural- 
ists that certain portions of the sea bottom may be as brilliantly illumined by this sort of light as the 
streets of a European city after sunset. 

One of the most striking examples of this vertical distribution, which 
forms layers of animal life, as it were, in the ocean from the abysses to the 
shallows, is shown by the coral-reefs. The foundations of these polyp-built 



264 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 




THE BOTTOM OF THE 
TROPICAL SEA. 

The large floating object is the phosphorescent, 
compound, oceanic hydrozoan Agahna tlegans, a 
phvsophore related to the jellyfishes. Its tentacles 
trail over dead corals,— madrepore, brain-corals, etc.; 
while the living reef beyond is crowned by branching 
corals, corallines and seaweeds. 

barriers or islands are laid by 
the millions of minute individ- 
uals of one solid, heavy kind of 
coral which can flourish only in 
pretty deep water. When these 
have reached their highest 
growth they cease to propagate 
there, and a second kind comes 



ANIMAL LIFE IN THE SEA 265 

and colonizes upon the summit of this massive foundation and carries the 
work a little farther up. Then these die off, and a third kind plants itself 
upon their remains and carries the structure to the top, near the surface of 
the sea, where many surface-corals, corallines, and various other limy and 
flinty plants and animals help to erect a dry reef, upon which land vege- 
tation can find a root-hold, and where, after a while, men may dwell. 
When these coral-built islands are ring-shaped they are called atolls, and 
are believed to be living crowns about the summits of submerged mountains. 

Men make use of something in nearly every branch of ocean life, from 
humblest to highest. The lowest of all, as I have already said, are the fora- 
minifers ; it is their skeletons which make up our common chalk. A close 
ally of theirs is the sponge, of which a dozen or so varieties are sold in 
the shops. Sponges come chiefly from the Mediterranean, the Persian 
and Ceylonese waters of the Indian Ocean, and from the Gulf coast of 
Florida. In the Old World they are obtained chiefly by diving. Men who 
are trained from boyhood to this work go out to the sponge-ground in 
boats on fine days. Fastening a netting-bag about their waists, and taking 
a heavy stone in their hands, they dive head-foremost to the bottom, — often 
twelve or fifteen fathoms below, — tear the sponges from the rocks, and rise 
with a bagful, to be dragged almost utterly exhausted into their boat, 
often fainting immediately after. This requires them to hold their breath 
under the water for two minutes or more ; but none but the most expert can 
do that, and a diver does not live long. In Florida, however, the sponge- 
gatherers do not dive, but go in ships to where the sponges grow, and then 
cruise about in small boats, each of which contains two men : one steers, 
while the other leans over the side searching the bottom. In order to see 
it plainly, he has what he calls a " water-glass " — a common wooden pail 
the bottom of which is glass. Pressing this down into the water a k\v 
inches, he thrusts in his face, and can then perceive everything on the 
bottom with great distinctness. When he sees a sponge he thrusts down 
a long, stout pole, on the end of which is a double hook, like a small pitch- 
fork, set at right angles to the handle, and drags up the captive. 

The sponges, having been obtained, must be put through long operations 
of rotting, beating, rinsing, drying, and bleaching before their skeletons — 
the serviceable part — are fit for use. Only a few, however, out of the 
large number of species of sponges have any commercial value. 

The limy skeletons of the coral polyps form what we term "corals." 
The round white ones and the variously branching ones may come from 
any one of several parts of the equatorial half of the globe, and are of value 
chiefly as mantel ornaments. The red coral of which necklaces and other 



266 THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 

bits of jewelry are made, especially at Naples, is procured by divers about 
the shores of Sicily and Sardinia, and its gathering, cutting and mounting 
into ornaments, form a flourishing industry in southern Italy. 

Rising in the zoological scale to starfishes and sea-urchins, I can only 
say that the starfishes interest oystermen because they prey upon their 
oysters, and the former often do enormous damage to planted beds, espe- 
cially in Long Island Sound. In the old days it was thought that medicines 
made out of the "stars" and the "sea-eggs" were very potent in certain 
diseases. The trepang — some one of several sorts of holothurian, an elon- 
gated creature related to the starfish, and covered with a prickly, leathery 
hide, so that it looks like a sort of sea-cucumber — which is dried and eaten 
by the Chinese and Malayans, belongs here too ; considerable quantities 
of these queer food-creatures are gathered by the Chinese along the coasts 
of Mexico, Southern California and the outlying islands, and are sold in 
San Francisco mainly for export to Asia. The sea-urchin itself is eagerly 
sought as food by the Indians of the American northwest coast. 

Coming to crustaceans — do we not eat crabs g-ladlv, from the "shed- 
der " to the huo-e lobster ? On the coast of Maine whole villages of sea- 
side people get their support almost wholly by catching lobsters and canning 
them to send abroad. In Virginia and North Carolina, at certain seasons, 
hundreds of men are engaged in catching and shipping crabs for market, 
and in Louisiana large factories are devoted to canning shrimps, which 
are also extensively used as food in the Old World, where they are cooked 
by parching or boiling, and sold by peddlers in the streets. 

This brings us to the mollusks, in our glance at the useful animals of the 
ocean ; and to prove their importance, it is enough to remind the reader 
that these include the "shell-fish" of our coasts — the oyster, clam, mussel, 
scallop, cockle, and all the rest — not a few ! 

I found by my long study of the subject, when, in 1879 and 1880, I was 
gathering statistics of the United States shell-fisheries for the United States 
Fish Commission and the Tenth Census, that at that time there were taken 
from our waters, of oysters alone, almost 23,000,000 bushels each year, 
worth to the oystermen about $13,500,000. During the twenty years that 
have elapsed since that investigation — the figures of which you may 
obtain in full in my Report to the Tenth Census upon the Oyster Indus- 
tries — these amounts have largely increased. 

This business employs over 100,000 persons in this country alone; and 
oysters, clams, and other shell-fish are gathered all round the globe, 
forming one of the most important of all natural supplies of food. In 
the most thickly populated parts of the world the natural supply of oysters 



ANIMAL LIFE IN THE SEA 



26; 



long ago ceased to suffice for the demand, and artificial propagation and 
cultivation were resorted to and now prevail on both sides of the North 
Atlantic, and to a less degree elsewhere. 

The Romans, away back in the days of Horace, raised oysters in ponds 
along the Italian coast, and Eastern nations preserved the custom during 
the middle ages, when Europe was doing little except quarreling and 
making pretty pictures on parchment. More recently the French of the 




STARFISHES AT HOME. 

This is the common eastern American form (Asterzas vulgaris) upper and under views. 



Channel coast took it up, and the English followed, finding that their natural 
oyster and mussel beds were becoming exhausted. The same fate has over- 
taken our oyster-beds everywhere north of the Chesapeake, and largely 
there ; so that now nearly all the oysters brought to market are those which 
have been raised upon private planted beds, which men own or lease and 



268 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 




attend to as they do to estates on 
shore ; indeed, it is common to 
speak of such under-water estates as 
" farms." 

An oyster-farm may be con- 
ducted in two ways. One is to 
place upon a certain space 
of bottom, in some shal- 
low bay, as many 
young oysters as 




SEA-SHELLS IN THE SURF. 



ANIMAL LIFE IN THE SEA 269 

it will conveniently hold. These young oysters, generally hardly bigger 
than your thumb-nail, are dredged in summer from certain reefs in deep 
water, where the oysters are never allowed to grow to full size ; and to a 
large extent they are brought northward by the ship-load from Maryland 
and Virginia, which have more "seed," as it is called, than they need for 
their own planting. These young oysters, protected from harm, and having 
plenty of space to grow, come to a proper size for market in about three 
years, and are then gathered by their owners and sold. 

Another method is to spread old shells, pebbles, etc., on the bottom, to 
which the floating eggs emitted by adult oysters in the neighborhood adhere. 
The thick "catch" of infant mollusks hatched from these captive eggs is 
then taken up and respread in a more scattered way upon new ground, and 
is allowed to grow to maturity. The oysters raised by either of these 
methods are of better appearance and taste, as a rule, than those that grow 
naturally, because each has room enough to perfect its proportions. 

Mussels, clams of many varieties, and even sponges and peak-shells, 
are also cultivated to some extent, each according to the plan its natural 
habits make advisable. In this way certain great areas of favorable ocean- 
bottom have become as valuable as the neighboring shore-land, or even 
far more so, if you compare, acre for acre, the yield of the crops below 
with those above the water-line. 

But mollusks are useful in many other ways than as human food. As 
they are known to be the principal food of several valuable fishes, enormous 
quantities are devoted to baiting hooks in both hand-lining and trawling 
for cod and similar commercial species. The quaint squids are mollusks, 
and these are especially useful for bait in certain places and seasons, and 
are taken in the North Atlantic in vast numbers for that purpose. 

The shells of mollusks are applied to a surprising variety of purposes, 
from paving roads to making shirt-studs, while their natural beauty has 
suggested their utilization as ornaments in a hundred ways. We cut them 
up by the million into buttons and various small objects, such as parasol 
handles, and polish and fashion them into all sorts of knickknacks, thus 
giving employment to thousands of persons. Many ship-loads of shells are 
brought to New York from the West Indies every year for such purposes. 
I need not dwell upon this, but turn to the interesting subject of pearls. 

Mother-of-pearl is the bright inside surface, or nacre, of the large oyster 
that gives us pearls, which are themselves composed of the same sub- 
stance formed in a nodule around some intruding substance, like a grain of 
sand, which irritates the mollusk's skin until it is made smooth and com- 
fortable by this iridescent coating. 



270 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 




MELEAGRINA. 

Meleagrina {Avicula) 

margaritifera. 

b. byssal foramen or 

notch ; g. suspen- 

sors of the gills. 



Bivalves yielding this beautiful sub- 
stance exist in various parts of the 
world ; but in America the only fishery 
for the pearl-oyster is in the Gulf of 
California, and that is by no means 
as productive as it used to be. The 
season for pearl-fishing on the Pacific 
coast of Mexico is from June to Decem- 
ber, but the diving can be done only in 
S;ood weather, and for about three 




CASSIDID.E. 

Helmet-shell (Cassis 
flammea). 



hours at the time of low water, since the tide there 

rises twenty feet, which would make a large dive of itself; and, besides, 



the currents are troublesome during 



Iwh 



At the right hour the Mexicans go out in their canoes, one man of the 
four or five in each canoe paddling, while the rest scrutinize the bot- 
tom. It may be rocky and weed-grown, but the water is clear, and 
their practised eyes detect a single round oyster where you or I cer- 
tainly would overlook a dozen of them. Then down a man goes and 
brings up his prize, with perhaps some additional ones. Sixty or eighty 
feet is not too deep for these adventurous divers, who will stay a whole 
minute upon the bottom. No food is eaten by these men on the day 
they dive until their labor has been done. 

Western Australia is another fruitful field for pearl- 
oysters, and until a few years ago they were taken 
there by native blackfellows, diving without weights 
or any other assistance in any water not 
more than ten fathoms deep. The inshore 
shallows have now been so cleared of 
shells that the only profitable in- 
dustry is to go down in deep 
water in diving-dress and make 
a thorough clean-up of each 
"patch" where the shells seem 
numerous. 

The divers find it an inter- 
esting and curious world where 
they work, but one full of fright 
and peril. Some men who at- 
tempt it are so unnerved that 
they will never make a second 





MITER-SHELLS. 



SCORPION-SHELL. 

(Pteroceras lambis.) 



a. Mitra vulpecula. b. Miira 

episcopalis. 



ANIMAL LIFE IN. THE SEA 



271 



descent. None can endure the practice long without ill health resulting ; 
and the native Australians will never enter a diver's dress, declining to go 
down where it is too deep to dive naked. 

As for the dangers, drowning by some accident to the apparatus, 
or through the stupidity of the boatmen above, is only one of them. 
The warm waters in which these men work are the home of the 




VENUS' COMB, ONE OF THE MU RICES OF CHINA. 



largest and most deadly sharks, and of various other submarine crea- 
tures one would rather not meet in their own element. Of them all 
the sharks are most to be dreaded, especially by the naked men. As 
a rule, however, they are easily frightened away, or can be avoided by the 
clever swimmer, who quickly stirs up the mud of the bottom, and rises in 
the fog before the dull shark discovers that he has gone. East Indians are 
said to fight sharks quite fearlessly, stabbing them with a knife as they roll 
over preparatory to a close attack. I have read a story to the effect that 
formerly the Mexican Indian divers on our western coast used to take down 
with them a stick of hard wood about two feet long and sharpened at both 



\"J2 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 




A MUREX ("MUREX PALMA-ROS^E " ) OF CEYLON. 

ends. When a shark was encountered from which they could not readily 
escape, they would snatch this weapon from their belts, grasp it in the 
middle, and thrust it dexterously crosswise into the widely distended mouth 
of the monster, opened to seize them. To shut down his jaws upon such a 
skewer would undoubtedly discomfit a shark or anything else; but when 
one thinks of the time, nerve, and sure aim it would require to accomplish 
this feat, he begins to doubt whether it really ever was tried. I advise 
you, therefore, to prove the story better than I have been able to do, be- 
fore you pin all your faith to it. 

An Australian pearl-diver, writing about this matter in "The Century" 
magazine a few years ago, assures us that a fifteen-foot shark, magnified 
by the water, and making a bee-line for one, is sufficient to make the stoutest 
heart quake, in spite of the assertion that sharks have never been known to 
attack a man in a rubber diving-dress. He adds : 

Neither is the sight of a large turtle comforting when one does not know exactly what it is, 
and the coiling of a sea-snake around one's legs, although it has only one's hands to bite at, is, to 
say the least, unpleasant. A little fish called the stone-fish is one of the enemies of the diver. 
It seems to make its habitation under the pearl-shell, as it is only when picking up a shell that 
any one has been known to be bitten. I remember well the first time I was bitten by this spite- 
ful member of the finny tribe. I dropped my bag of shells, and hastened to the surface ; but in 
this short space of time my hand and arm had so swollen that it was with difficulty I could get 
the dress off, and then was unable to work for three days, suffering intense pain the while. After- 
ward I learned that staying down a couple of hours after a bite will stop any further discomfort, 
the pressure of water causing much bleeding at the bitten part, and thus expelling the poison. 

All the oysters when brought ashore are opened in vats of water, and 
carefully examined for the pearls they may contain half embedded in their 



ANIMAL LIFE IN THE SEA 



73 



mantles ; but very few reward the diver with gems worth selling separately 
or otherwise than by weight as "seed " pearls. Many divers, therefore, do 
not themselves take the trouble of opening what they catch, but sell them 
unopened at a few cents a dozen, preferring the small and steady assured 
income to the chances of failure or a fortune. 

The round, flat, beautiful shells are saved, and their sale (for mother-of- 
pearl work) brings nearly as much money into the pearl-fishing communities 
in the course of a season as^is derived from the pearls themselves. 

What beauty, as well as usefulness, have shells ! And how wide is the 
science (conchology) that deals with them, and tells us not only their struc- 
ture and manner of life, but interprets the part which their extraordi- 
nary forms, ornaments, colors, and appendages play in their " struggle for 
existence " down in that populous green under-world of the waters ! 

I know a picturesque old house [writes a charming pen in one of the early volumes of 
" Scribner's Monthly "] that has a many-shelved pantry devoted to the exhibition and sale of 




ON THE GULF STREAM SLOPE, FROM ONE TO TWO MILES BELOW 

THE SURFACE. 



shells, collected in many a long voyage to the remotest parts of the five oceans. Apart from 
their scientific interest, their associations with alien races and far-off countries, how beautiful these 
shells are in themselves ! and how readily might the prevailing vulgarities and absurdities in the 
decoration of glass and porcelain be corrected by studying the ceramics of nature ! How, for 
instance, is our sense of cleanliness served and our appetite wooed by the extreme smoothness, 
18 



274 



THE BOOK OF THE OCEAN 



hardness of surface, and pearly white of the oyster-shell ! What decoration in the part that re- 
ceives the viand, what metallizing the surface or changing it into artificial marble, or covering 
it up with pictures, would take the place of the pure, colorless shell ? 

Every species of these shells has a principle of growth, or law of form, peculiar to itself and 
yet based upon some more general law of form common to other species. ... In the comb of 
Venus, for instance, the initial impulse of structure tends to produce a series of spines of a pe- 
culiar curvature, and arranged after a certain order that involves the use of similar curves. It 
is interesting to study the development of this simple principle into the complex and singular 
form of beauty comprised in the shell itself, the idea being carried into the most minute particu- 
lars — even the dark markings at the mouth being shaped like spines, and every small projection 
on the surface evidently being an arrested development of spines. In the Murex haustellum, on 
the contrary, nodules take the place of spines. In the M. endivia an entirely different idea is 
developed. Notice the cross-striations. Instead of prolonging themselves into cylindrically 
pointed spines, as in the case of the Venus' comb, or bunching themselves into knobs, as in the 
M. haustellum, they expand into wonderful foliated projections, the edges of which are beautifully 
fluted, like the leaves of the lettuce. Another fine effect is afforded by the different texture of 
the inside and outside surfaces, down to the smallest foliation, the inner parts exhibiting a 
polished pearly white, and the outside a gray and wrinkled skin. Observe that, however rough 
or dull of hue the outside of a shell, its lips are always pure and often flushed with lovely color; 
for, as a rule (and here is another hint to decorators), Nature distinguishes by some adornment the 
most significant parts of her creatures, where life and use are centered. . . . The ocean, indeed, 
beautifies all it touches. Give it any rough shard, and it will so roll it about, and lick it with 
its waves, and smooth it with their soft attrition, that it will return you a polished and shapely 
nodule, exhibiting all the beauty of color and surface of which the material is capable. 




•/-' ^- 



- Vr Mr?Ky 




INDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



Adler at Samoa, 200. 

Agalma elegans, 264. 

Alabama, the, in action, 136, 158. 

Algae, typical, 252, 254. 

Almirante Cochrane, in action with 

Huascar, 141. 
America, the yacht, 1S8, 195. 
Antarctic scenery, 101. 
Ardois night-signals at sea, 205. 
Argonaut shell, 274. 
Armada, style of ships of the, 115. 

Balloon-sail, 158, 1S6. 

Battle-ships, modern steel, 134, 142, 

144, 147, 150, 153. See also Line- 

of-Battle Ships. 
Beam-trawl for deep-sea dredging, 

261. 
Biremes, Roman, 42. See Galleys. 
Boat-davits, 223, 232. 
Bon Homme Richard, the, 182. 
Bottle-fish, the, 263. 
Bowsprit, the, and its rigs, 38, 63, 

113, 120, 158, 175. See Cutters 

and Sloops. 
Breeches-buoy, method of using, 229. 
Buckeye, or "bugeye," a, 198. 
Buoys, 225, 226, 227. 

Cambria, model of, 195. 

Cameos, shell used for, 270. 

Can-buoys, 225. 

Canoes, 28, 37, 45, 198. 

Caravels, 35, 61, 63, 65, 76. 

Carronade, an old, 185. 

Cassis, a typical, 270. 

" Castles," fore and aft, on ancient 

ships, 35, 57, 63, 65, 112, 114, 115, 

119. 
Catboat, a Newport, 195. 
Center-board boats, models of, 195. 
Chain-plates, 172. 
Channels, 172. 
Chart, an early, 54. 
Chinese boats, 32. Compare Malay 

Boats. 
Clewed-up, mainsails, 120, 184. 
Clipper-ship, a, 15S, 164. 
Coast, destruction of, by the sea, 3, 5, 

7, 10, 15, 58. 
Collision, scene in a, 202. 
Columbia, the, 146. 
Columbus, Christopher,flag-ship 0^63. 
Columbus, Christopher, statue of, 60. 
Constellation, 184. 
Constitution, frigate, 106, 132. 
Costumes of mariners, 117, 123, 142, 

147, 157, 172, 179. 
Cruisers, modern steel, 146, 150, 154, 

205. 



Crustaceans of the deep sea, 273. 
Cutters, 188, 191, 193. 

Day-marks (for pilots), 225. 

Deck scenes, modern, 142, 147, 154, 

164,261. 
Deck scenes on old-time vessels, 117, 

130. 
Deep-sea dredging apparatus, 261. 
Diatoms, 257. 
Diving-dress, 25S. 
Driver (sail). See Spanker. 
Dynamite-cruiser, in action, 154. 

Earthquake waves, 18, 21. 
El Chico, model of, 195. 
Eskimos in summer, 83. 

Felucca, a, 175. 

Fin-keel yachts, models of, 195. 
Fiord, a, in New Zealand, 15. 
Fish-curing at St. Pierre, 243. 
Fishes, deep-sea, 263. 
Fishing-boats, American, 245, 247. 
Fishing-boats, Canadian, 5, 17, 243. 
Fishing-boats, French, 7. 
Fishing-boatsofthe Mediterranean's. 
Fishing-pound, at low tide, 17. 
Flare, burning a, at sea, 221. 
Flying Dutchman, the, 57. 
Fog-bell, a, 219. 
Fore-and-aft rig, 221. 
Frigates, 125, 132, 136, 182, 184. 
Full-rigged ship. See Ship. 
Gaff-topsail, 186, 193, 221. See 

Cutters and Sloops. 
Galleons, Spanish, 119. 
Galleys, ancient, 42, 43, 109, III, 112. 
Genesta, the yacht, 191, 195. 
Gloriana, model of, 195. 
Great Harry, bow of, 113. 
Gucrriere, frigate, in action, 125. 
Gulfweed and its inhabitants, 252. 

Halcyon, the, yacht, 186. 
Hamilcar's stairway of the galleys, 

109. 
Hand-line fishing, 245. 
Helmet-shell, a, 270. 
Homeward-bound pennant, 133. 
" Hove to," attitude of sails, 37, 247. 
Huascar, in action, 141. 
Hydroid, a compound, 264. 

Icebergs and ice-floes, 79, So, S5, 89, 

92, 97, 103, 105. 
Indiana, the, 144. 
Ircx, the yacht, 191. 
Ironclads, early, 134, 13S, 139, 141. 



Jellyfish, a typical, 262. 
Jib-sails, 120, 158, 175, 186. 
Jib-staysails, S9, 15S, 175, 221. 

Kearsarge, the, in action with the Ala- 
bama, 136. 
Krakatoa, in eruption, 12. 

Lanterns, stern, of old ships, 57. 115. 
Lateen rigs, 28, 35, 37, 38, 61, 181. 
Launch, a steam, 153. 
Leeboard, a, 198. 
Leg-of-mutton sails, 198. 
Life-boat, a self-righting, 230. 
Life-saving service, the, 228, 229, 230. 
Light-houses, 18, 213, 214, 215. 
Light-ship, Nantucket, 217, 218. 
Light-ship, Sandy Hook, 186. 
Line-of-battle ships, wooden, 120, 134. 
Lugsail rigs, 42, 43, 45, 48. 

Magic, model of, 195. 

Main chains, 172. 

Maine, the, 153. 

Mainsail or main course, 120, 158, 
164, 175, 184, 221. 

Malay boats, 28, 181. 

Maria, the yacht, 188. 

Massachusetts, the, 142. 

Matting sails, 32, 1S1. 

Mayflower, the yacht, 186, 194. 

Medieval vessels, various forms of, 
35,63, 65, 112, 115, 119. 

Meleagrina, 270. 

Merrimac, the, 13S. 

Midnight sun at sea, 2. 

Midshipmen of 1S12, 123. 

Military masts, ancient, ill. 

Military masts, modern, 134, 141, 144, 
146, 150, 153, 205. 

Minot's Ledge lighthouse, 213. 

Mischief, model of, 195. 

Miter-shells (Mitra), 270. 

Mizzen, the ancient (compare Span- 
ker), 63. 

Models of hulls of yachts, 195. 

Mollusks, shells of. See Sea-shells. 

Monitor, the, 139. 

Monitors, 139, 149, 150. 

Muleta, a, 38. Compare Felucca. 

Murex-shells, 263, 272. 

Muriel, the yacht, 193. 

Nelson, portrait of, 129. 

Nelson, signal of, at Trafalgar, 127. 

Nun buoys, 225. 

Obstruction buoy, 226. 
Olive-shell (Oliva), 268. 
Outriggers, forms of, 2S, 37. 



2 7 6 



INDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



Packet, a Liverpool, 160. 
Paper-nautilus, the, 274. 
Pearl-oyster, the, 270. 
Pelagia cyanella, 262. 
Pelican-fish, the, 263. 
Penguins, Antarctic, IOI, 103. 
Physophore, a, 264. 
Pilot-boat, 221, 223. 
Pirates, at home, 179. 
Pirates, Malay, 181. 
Proas, Malay, 28, 37. 
Pteroceras lambis, 270. 
Puritan, the yacht, 194, 195. 

Raking masts, 18S, 198. 
Rapid-fire guns, 147. 
Reefing a topsail, 31. 
Reef-points, 43, 120, 132, 158, 188. 
Rowboats, 45, 236, 239, 248. See 

also Galleys and Yawl. 
Royal sails, 132, 158, 184. 

Sails, decorated, 45, 48, 63. 

Sails, various forms of, 31, 32, 113, 

115, 119, 181. See also names of 

sails and rigs. 
Saloon of a modern steamship, 161. 
Saloon of a packet-ship, 160. 
Samoans battling with surf, 208. 
Sandbagger-sloop, a, 197. 
Sappho, model of, 195. 
Sargassum, a piece of, 252. 
Schooners, 26, 186, 188, 221, 223, 247. 
Scorpion-shell, the, 270. 
Sea-anemones, 273. 
Sea-caves, 10. 
Sea-fights, 74, 106, III, 115, 117, 119, 

125, 130, 136, 141, 147, 175, 182. 
Search-lights, 150, 153. 



Sea-shells, 268, 270, 271, 272, 274. 

Sea-slugs (Doris), 252. 

Seaweeds, 252, 254. 

Serapis, the, 182. 

Ship, a full-rigged, 37, 89, 92, 120, 

132, 133, 158, 184,232, 234. 
Ship of the line. See Line-of-Bat- 

tle Ships. 
Ship weathering a gale with sails 

furled, 8, 56, 89, 207. 
Ships' boats, 232, 236, 239. 
Sharpie, a, 198. 
Shrouds, 164, 172. 
Sidewheel steamer, a, 21. 
Signal flags, 127. 
Signaling at sea, 205, 206, 221. 
Signal-mast, a, 142. 
Siren, on a steamship, 220. 
Sky-scraper sails, 132, 184. 
Sloops, 24, 186, 194, 197, 199. 
Sloops-of-war, 130, 207. 
Spanker-, driver-, or mizzen-sail, 89, 

196. 
Spar buoys, 225. 
Sponsons, 144, 153. 
Starfish, the common, 267. 
Staysails, 221. 
Steam frigates, 136, 138. 
Steamships, modern mercantile, 161, 

167, 181,223. 
Steam-yacht, a, 186. 
Steering oar, a modern, 239. 
Storm scenes, 18, 21, 24, 31, 56, 200, 

207, 20S, 213, 217, 247. 
Studding-sails, 132, 133, 158, 184. 
Surf, and its effect, 3, 21, 71, 208. 

Tara, the yacht, 191. 
Tecumseh, the monitor, 149. 



Theseus and Guerriere, 125. 

Thistle, model of, 195. 
Tides — scene at low tide, 1 7." 
Topcastles, 63, 1 1 1. 
Topgaliantsails, 120, 132, 158, 184. 
Topsails, 120, 125, 158, 175. 
Topsails, square, 120, 132, 184. (See 

also Ships, Full-Rigged.) 
Torpedo-boats, 150, 151. 
Torpedo-boats, submarine, 152. 
Torpedoes and their effect, 149, 150. 
Towing a barge, 1 70. 
Trying out whale-blubber, 234 
Turrets, 142, 144, 150, 153. 

Venus' Comb, 271. 
Very night-signals, 206. 
Vesuvius, the, 154. 
Viking ships, 45, 48, 51. 
Volcanoes on the sea-shore, 12. 
Volunteer, model of, 186, 195. " 

Walking the plank, 1 72. 
Walruses on the ice, 80. 
Ward-room of a war-ship, 123. 
Wasp, in action with Frolic, 130. 
Wasp, model of the yacht, 195. 
Waves, oceanic, 8, 18, 24, 56, 57. 
Whale, sperm, head of, 240. 
Whaleback, a, 169. 
Whaleboats, 232, 236, 239, 240. 
Whalers, 232-240. 
Whistling buoy, 227. 
Wreck, 130, 149, 202, 229, 230. 

Yachts, models of, 195. 
Yachts, racing, 186, 188, 191, 193, 195. 
Yawl, a ship's, 105, 223. 
Yawl-rig, the, 197. 



F^Kd^ 



GENERAL INDEX 



Africa, first circumnavigated, 41. 
" America," origin of the name, 63. 
America, visited by Norsemen, 45, 48. 
America Cup, races for, 190-195. 
American Arctic exploration, 86, 

89, 90. 
Atlantic, North, early voyages in, 44. 
Atlantic Ocean, defined, 5. 
Atlantis, the fabled land of, 6. 
Alert, Arctic expedition of, 96. 
Algse. See Seaweeds. 
Algerian pirates, 173. 
Ancient sea-animals, 259. 
Andree's Arctic balloon, 100. 
Animal life in the sea, 259-274. 
Animals inhabiting seaweeds, 251, 

252 257. 
Antarctic Ocean, defined, 7. 
Arabic commerce, 43. 
Arabs, as navigators, 52, 57. 
Arctic American coast traced, Si, 82, 

83, 88. 
Arctic exploration, 77-100. 
Arctic Ocean, defined, 7. 
Armada, the Spanish, 114-117. 
Armor for ships, 136, 13S, 145. 
Astrolabe, the, 53, 73. 
Australia, discovery of, 72, 76. 

Baffin, voyage to Baffin's Bay, 79, Si. 
Balboa, discovers the Pacific, 64. 
Banks of Newfoundland, fishing on, 

245. 
Barataria pirates of Louisiana, 179. 
Barbarossa, the brothers, 171. 
Barbary States, the, 174. 
Barentz and Barentz's Sea, 78, 91. 
Barks described, 36, 38. 
Battle-ships, modern steel, 140-148. 
Bering, expeditions of, So. 
Biremes, Greek and Roman, 108. 
Bjarne's discoveries, 46. 
Boats of the Egyptians, 28, 30, 32. 
Boats of the Phoenicians, 28, 30, 33. 
Boats of early Scandinavians, 29, 30. 
Boats, primitive, 27. 
Bon Homvie Richard 'and Serapis, 12S. 
Bowsprit sails, 34, 37. 
Brazil, discovery of, 62, 64. 
Brazil, the name, 66. 
Brigs described, 36. 
Buccaneers, career of the, 1 77. 
Buckeye, or "bugeye," 198. 
Buoys and channel marks, 225. 

Cabot's voyage to America, 65, 67. 

Canada discovered, 6S. 

Cape Horn, first rounded, 72. 

Cape of Good Hope discovered, 54. 

Captain capsized, 201. 

Caravels of Columbus, 34, 35, 61, 63. 



Carrageen or Irish moss, 255. 
Carihaginiar.s as navigators, 42. 
Carder discovers Canada, 6S. 
Catboat described, 35. 
Center-board, explained, 1S9. 
Challenger expedition, 10, 272. 
Chancellor, voyage of, to the White 

Sea, 77. 
Charybdis, whirlpool of, 19. 
Chesapeake and Shannon, 129. 
Chinese as navigators, 52. 
Clippers, Baltimore, 183. 
Colossus of Rhodes, 211. 
Columbus, Christopher, 59. 
Commerce at sea, history of, 155-170. 
Commerce, early European, 52, 155. 
Commerce, medieval, 156. 
Commerce, modern, 159. 
Compass, the mariner's, 51. 
Constitution, U. S. frigate, 130-133. 
Constitution, in the war with Tripoli, 

174. 
Cook, Captain James, voyage of, 75- 
Copenhagen, battle of, 126. 
Corals and coral polyps, 265. 
Corsairs, the, 172. 
Corte-Real, voyage of, 6S. 
Crabs, caught for market, 266. 
Cruisers, service of, 121, 140. 
Currents in the ocean. See Ocean 

Currents. 
Cutter, rig of a, 35. 

Dampier, voyages of, 73. 
Dangers of the Deep, 200-230. 
Davis, exploration of Davis's Strait, 

78. 
Decatur's exploit at Tripoli, 175. 
Deep-sea conditions of life, 263. 
De Long, death of Lieutenant, 95. 
Dias, Bartholomew, voyage of, 53. 
Diatoms described, 249, 257. 
Distribution of animals in the sea, 

261. 
" Don't give up the ship," 129. 
Drake, Francis, 114, 181. 
Dredging, deep-sea, 260. 
Dynamite-throwing, 154. 

Earthquake-waves, 203. 

East India Companies, 157, 159. 

"East Indiaman," an, 162. 

East Indian pirates, 1S0. 

East Indies, the, 69, 71, 74. 

Eddystone lighthouse, 212. 

Egypt's grain-trade, 156. 

" England expects every man will do 

his duty," 126, 127. 
England's sea-wars, 114, 129, 157. 
Erik the Red, 45. 



Faroes discovered, 44. 
Fishixg and other Marine In- 
dustries, 231-248. 
Fishing in the North Atlantic, 244. 
Fin keels, 194, 195. 
Fire-ships, 116. 
Fog-horns and sirens, 219. 
From, voyage of the, 99. 
Francis Joseph Land, 93, 100. 
Franklin, Sir John, 82, S3, 88. 
French-American naval war, 126. 
Frigates, service of, 121, 122, 130. 
Frobisher, Martin, 77, 1 14. 
Fundy, tides in the Bay of, 19. 

Galiot, the, 112. 

Galleass, the, 112. 

Galleon, the, 112, 116, 173, 182. 

Galleys, early types of, 107, III, 112. 

Gallivat, the, 112. 

Geography, early knowledge of, 50. 

Great Harry, the, 114. 

Greely, Gen. A. W., Arctic work by, 

96. 
Greenland discovered, 45. 
Greenland, coasts explored, 91, 96, 

99. 
Guerrierc, story of the, 131. 
Gulf Stream, the, 22, 23. 
Gulfweed (Sargassum), 251, 252. 
Gunnbjorn, 45. 
Guns of war-ships, 145-148. 

Hall, Charles, Arctic exploration by, 

90. 
Hand-line fishing, 245, 246. 
Hanno, expedition of, 42. 
Harbor-beacons, 225. 
Harbor-defense vessels, 140. 
Hawkins, John, 114, 1S1. 
Henry, the navigator, 52, 53. 
Hittites, the, as navigators, 40. 
Holland, as a sea-power, 118, 122. 
Howard, Admiral, 114, 115. 
Hudson, discoveries by, 78. 

Iceland discovered, 44. 

Indian Ocean defined, 6. 

Instruments for navigation, 52, 57,73. 

Irish moss, 255. 

Irish sea-wanderers, 44. 

Ironclads, early, 136. 

Jean Bart, the privateer, 182. 
Jeannet/e, voyage of the, 94. 

Kane, Dr. E. K., Arctic exploration 

by, S6. 
Kearsarge and Alabama, 136. 
Kearsarge wrecked, 201. 
Kelp and kelp-ash, 253, 256. 



7 8 



GENERAL INDEX 



Kidd, Captain, the pirate, 178. 
Krakatoa, explosion of, 203. 
Kuroshiwo (japan current), 22, 24. 

Lafitte, the pirate, 1S9. 

La Plata, Rio, first entered, 69. 

Lateen rigs, 32, 34. 

Lead keels, 194. 

Lee-board, explained, 179. 

Leif Erikson's voyage, 47. 

Lepanto, victory of, III. 

Letters of marque, 180. 

Life-saving service, the United States, 
227. 

Lighthouses, arrangements for light- 
ing, 216. 

Lighthouses, history of, 211, 212, 

213. 254- 
Light-ships, American, 216. 
Line-of-battle ships, 121, 134. 
Live stock carried on long voyages, 

163. 
Lockwood reaches " highest north," 

98. 
Lug-sails explained, 133. 

McClure, Arctic exploration by, 84, 

87. 
Maelstrom, the, 19. 
Magellan circumnavigates the world, 

69. 

Magnetic pole determined, 82. 
Maps, early, 50, 53, 54, 62. 
Masts, names of, 36. 
Medieval ships, 33. 
Mediterranean Sea, defined, 9. 
Melville's search for Jeannette sur- 
vivors, 95. 
Mercator, the map-maker, 72. 
Merchants of the Sea, the, 

I55-I7°- 

Mines, submarine, 148. 
Minot's Ledge lighthouse, 214. 
Mollusks, utility of, 269. 
Monitor, the, 139, 141. 
Morgan, the pirate, 17S. 
Mother-of-pearl, 269. 
Murex-shells, 274. 
Myths as to Atlantic islands, 65. 

Nansen, Arctic work of, 99. 
Napoleon's sea-campaigns, 122. 
Naval warfare, beginning of, 107. 
Naval warfare, medieval, no. 
Naval warfare, theory of, 118. 
Navigation, prehistoric, 39. 
Navigation, instruments for, 52, 57, 

73- 
Navy, Byzantine, no. 
Navy, French, 122. 
Navy, Greek, 107. 
Navy, English, 113, 119, 129, 183. 
Navy, Roman, 148, 156. 
Nearchus, voyage of, 43. 
Nelson, Admiral Horatio, 122-128. 
Nelson's famous signal, 126, 127. 
Newfoundland, discovery of, 44, 65, 

68. 
Night-signals at sea, 205, 206. 
Nile, battle of the, 124. 
Nordenskjold's voyage in the Vega, 

93- 



Norsemen. See Scandinavians 

and Vikings. 
North America discovered, 46, 62, 65. 
North Atlantic, exploration of, 78, 

So, 91, 99. 
Northeast Passage, search for, 77,91, 

93- 
Northwest Passage, search for, 77, 

81, 84, 87. 
North Pacific explored, 75, 80, 84. 
Nova Zembla, 78, 91. 

Ocean, the, and its Origin, 1-8. 

Ocean, bed of the, n. 

Ocean, characteristics of, 9. 

Ocean, chemistry of, 14. 

Ocean currents, 20, 23. 

Ocean, depth of, 9. 

Ocean, effects of upon the land, 4. 

Ocean, life in, 259-274. 

Ocean, saltness of, 13. 

Old Ironsides. See CONSTITUTION. 

Ooze, oceanic, 13, 274. 

Outriggers, 28. 

Oysters and oyster culture, 266. 

Pacific Ocean, defined, 4. 

Pacific Ocean, discovery of, 64. 

Packet-ships, transatlantic, 160, 165. 

Paddles and oars, 29. 

Paleocrystic Sea, the, 88. 

Parry, Arctic explorations by, 81. 

Payer and Weyprecht, 91. 

Paul Jones, 128. 

Pearl-oyster and pearls, 269. 

Peary, Arctic work of, 99. 

Persians as navigators, 43. 

Philadelphia, U. S. frigate at Tri- 
poli, 174. 

Phoenicians as navigators, 41. 

Pdots and their duties, 220-226. 

Piracy, history of, 171-185. 

Piracy in the East Indies, 1S0. 

Plants of the Sea and their 
Uses, 249-257. 

Polaris, misadventure of, 90. 

Pope, the, divides the earth, 55. 

Portugal as a sea-power, 52, 55. 

Pressure, effects of, in the sea, 262. 

Prester John, 54. 

Privateering, 180, 1S3, 185. 

Ptolemy, the geographer, 50. 

" Redbeard," the pirate, 171. 
Rigging of primitive ships, 30. 
Robbers of the Seas, 171-185. 
Ross, Arctic explorations by, 81, S2. 
Royal George, sunk, 201. 
Rules of the road at sea, 203. 
Russian Arctic coast, the, 79. 

Sails, lateen, 32. 
Sails, names of a ship's, 36. 
Sails of early ships, 30. 
Sails, square-rigged, 34. 
Sails, two types of, 31. 
St. Lawrence Bay and River discov- 
ered, 68. 
St. Pierre and Miquelon, 242. 
Salamis, battle of, 107. 
Samoa, the great sto'rm at, 206-211. 



Sandbagger, a, 197. 

Sardines, fishing for, 244. 

Sargasso Seas, 251. 

Schooners, described, 36, 38. 

Scylla and Charybdis, 19. 

Sealing, 241. 

Search-light, uses of, on war-ships, 

150. 
Sea-shells, use and beauty of, 269, 

273- 
Sea-snakes, 259. 
Seaweeds, 249-257. 
Secrets won from the Frozen 

North, 77-165. 
Serapis, fight of the, 12S. 
Seventy-four, a, 121. 
Sharks, as a danger to divers, 271. 
Sharpie, characteristics of the, 198. 
Ship-building, development of, 119. 
Ship-chandler, a, 204. 
Ship, sails of a full-rigged, 36. 
Ships, the Building and Rigging 

of, 27-38. 
Ships' lanterns and lights, 204. 
Ships, Phoenician, 155. 
Ships, Roman merchant, 156. 
Siberia, explorations north of, 79, 93, 

.95- . 
Signaling at night, 205, 206, 222. 
Sirens, or fog-horns, 219. 
Slave-trade, the, 184. 
Sloop, a, described, 35. 
Solis discovers the La Plata, 69. 
Sounding oceanic depths, 9. 
South America, discovery of, 61, 62. 
South Sea. See Pacific Ocean. 
Spanish conquerors in West Indies, 

177- 

Spitzbergen, 91, 233. 
Sponges and their taking, 265. 
Spritsail-mast, the, 34. 
Square-rig, examples of, 33. 
Starfishes, damage by, 265. 
Steamships, development of, 165, 16S. 
Steamships, ocean courses of, 168. 
Steamships, records of transatlantic, 

166. 
Steerage passage, the, 163. 
Steering, methods of, 29. 
Suez Canal, the, 41, 169. 

Table of sea-road distances, 170. 
Tactics, naval, 107. 115, 118, 121, 135. 
Tasman, voyages of, 72. 
Telegraph, submarine, 161. 
Tides, explained, 17. 
Topsail schooner, described, 36. 
Torpedo-boats, 140, 150-154. 
Torpedoes and submarine mines, 14S. 
Trafalgar, battle of, 126. 
Trawls described, 246, 272. 
Treasure-ships, Spanish, 173, 17S, 

1S2. 
Trepang, or beche la mer, 266. 
Tripoli, bombardment of, 174. 
Triremes, Greek and Roman, 10S. 
Tunnies, fishing for, 244. 
Turtles, as a danger to divers, 272. 

United States exploring expedition, 

76. 
United States, naval incidents, 128, 

174, 183. 



GENERAL INDEX 



279 



Vasco da Gama, 56, 157. 
Vega, voyage of, north of Asia, 93. 
Venice, state barge of, 112. 
Venus'-comb shell, 274. 
Verrazano, voyage of, 68. 
A'espucci, Amerigo, voyages of, 62. 
Vesuvius, the dynamite-cruiser, 154. 
Vikings, origin and voyages of, 29, 44. 
Vinland visited, 47. 
Voyages and Explorations, 
Early, 39-76. 

Walrus-hunting, 241. 
War-ships and Naval Battles, 
107-154. 



War-ships wrecked at Samoa, 206- 

211. 
Wasp and Frolic, 129. 
Water-spouts at sea, 202. 
Waves, tides, and currents, 9. 
Weather-stations, international, 96. 
West coast of Africa, 42, 53, 56. 
Weyprecht, Arctic work of, 91. 
Whaleback, the, 169. 
Whaling, history of American, 235. 
Whaling, history of European, 233. 
Whaling, in the North Atlantic, So, 



Whaling-vessels, 235. 
Wreckers, doings of, 212. 

Yachting and Pleasure-mating, 

186. 
Yachting, early history of, 187, 196. 
Yacht-clubs in the United States, 

1S8, 196. 
Yachts, designing racing, 192, 195. 
Yachts, rigs of small, 197. 
Yawl, characteristics of the, 197. 



Whaling, methods of, 231, 237-241. Zeni, voyages of the, 48. 




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